Occasionally, I get
an e-mail from someone who complains that somewhere in the middle
of my reviews I "spoil" a movie by giving away some surprise.
I am going to be very careful in this review to not do that.
The character Tom Hanniger, son of the coal mine owner, and
responsible for an accident ten years before, is the serial
killer. See? This time I did it right up front.
My Bloody Valentine
3D cost me $12.50 to see. That pretty much sucks, especially
when the assholes at the theater want you to give the glasses
back at the end of the show. I'd like to keep the glasses to
wear to the library and to coffee shops and shit so I can be
smart looking and understand what I'm reading better. And maybe
some really cute girl will ask me to read Dune to her
while she caresses my feet. A girl so cute that Mrs. Filthy
says it's okay, I mean. Girls at coffee shops around here are
always reading Dune.
Twelve and a half
bucks doesn't cheese me off, really. It's nearly two-thirds
of my weekly allowance, but I also found a case of expired,
Chinese cough syrup behind the Family Dollar the other day.
It's 47% alc by vol and has a refreshing, metallic aftertaste.
I drank a bottle, fell asleep and dreamed I was fucking unicorns.
And I liked it. When I woke up, I remembered the dream
visibly, and thought I saw unicorns everywhere all day, so I
kept getting boners. Man, that's seriously good shit. Plus,
all my facial hair fell of after drinking it.
What pisses me off
about paying that much for a mediocre movie is that a high price
should be the barrier that keeps out annoying teenagers. I thought
for sure when I handed over that much cash I would watch My
Bloody Valentine 3D with Arvada's cultured, pipe-smoking,
elbow-patched elite. They would chortle at the jokes and comment
on the similarities between this movie and the digressions in
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Alas, the audience
was the same giggly, annoying kids that are always at the movies
on Friday nights. Where the fuck did they get that kind of bread?
How come they can afford cell phones and I can't? Not that I
want to talk to anybody; I have a phobia about phones. I'd like
to play Tetris, though. Where were the city council and members
of the Historical Society? Did I miss the twenty-dollar screening?
If overpaying isn't going to elevate me to high society, how
the hell am I gonna get in?
Without getting to
hobnob with the mayor and the president of the junior college,
My Bloody Valentine 3D sure as hell ain't worth $12.50.
It's not worth regular prices for the 2D version, and it won't
even be worth watching for free on TBS in a couple years. I
will say, though, that's it's the first of this new breed of
3D movies that embraces the tacky, cornball potential of three
dimensions. You see more dangerous shit flying at you than would
a guy wearing a PETA shirt at a crossbow convention. There are
picks, fiery explosions, tits, pans, guts, brooms and teenagers.
It's not to the level of Dr. Tongue holding his western shirt
to the camera in Midnight Cowboy 2 in 3D. Still, it's
more than any of the other recent flicks who try pretend it's
not just a gimmick.
Beyond 3D, My
Bloody Valentine is generic. The movie Scream and
its sequels must be far enough in the past now that moviemakers
can once again use the hoary old tricks and plots of the seventies
and eighties. The only difference between this flick and its
predecessors is that now the irrational, indestructible killer
is a coalminer who wears heavy coveralls and a breathing apparatus
that makes him sound like either an obscene phone caller or
a fat kid with asthma. Oh, and the backstory is as belabored
as that same fat kid during PE.
Ten years ago on
Valentine's Day, a cast of low-budget unknowns in a small town
were terrorized by a coal mine accident. Young Tom Hanniger
(Jensen Ackles), son of the mine owner, caused the accident
that trapped a few miners. One of those, Harry Warden, killed
the others and survived. In the hospital, he woke from a coma,
returned to the mine to grab a pick, coveralls and gas mask,
and killed a bunch more people before being shot dead... or
was he? (Yes, he was.)
After ten years gone,
Ackles returns to the small town. On Valentine's Day! His old
girlfriend (Jaime King) has married his high school rival (Kerr
Smith - a very, very poor man's David Arquette) who is also
the local sheriff. Ackles is there to sell his father's mine
and rekindle his old lovelight. If you know what I mean. I mean,
wax his candle wick. Which means, put his wiener in his ex-girlfriend's
vagina. Which means make babies. Shortly after Ackles gets to
town, a gas-masked killer goes about throwing picks at movie
cameras, and shattering glass at movie cameras, and having naked
girls run toward movie cameras.
Yes, there is a shitload
of nudity, kids, but all in one burst. During illicit Valentine's
sex at a motel, a naked girl exposes her boobs. Then, while
being chased around the parking lot and motel, she shows her
pubic hair and her ass, too. A lot. She's okay looking. She's
definitely not a major character, so you know she's gonna get
a pick through the face. The sad part is, the two better looking
girls in the movie don't show anything. Maybe they have starry
dreams of someday being real actresses. At which point, they
will flash their genitals to the world in stolen home videos.
Once it is established
that the killer dresses like a coalminer, My Bloody Valentine
is a repetitive series of gory murders with almost no reason
to care who gets stabbed. An old guy gets his face shoved into
it. Two girls get chased around a supermarket. An old guy gets
a pick hooked under his jaw and then his face ripped off. Teenagers
get hacked up and everyone's heart gets ripped out and stuffed
in a box of chocolates. Ah, yes, it makes sense to me. Whenever
I think of Valentine's Day, I think of coal mining. It's a natural
fit. Certainly not a contrivance to give the movie a convenient
title. The deaths are numerous, the blood flows as easily as
it does for four days every month in the women's block of a
state prison. The 3D at least gives you a few startles. The
movie, though, is never scary.
The order that people
are killed, and the reasons are nonsensical, in keeping with
the tradition established by shitty movies of the eighties and
nineties. The plot and motivations are ridiculous. This could
easily be Death Spa or Death Hospital or Candy
Bottoms' ill-fated genre-bender Death Butt Sex. We're
supposed to wonder whether the killer is Ackles or Smith. I
never did; I just hoped someone else would get naked. Is Hanniger
an innocent, decent guy (no), or is he a just-out-of-the-institution
lunatic hellbent on killing everyone (yes)? Is Smith a philandering-but-decent
cop (yes), or is he a killer with virtually no valid reason
to chop people up (no)? I have to say, anyone who really wants
to be surprised by this ending needs to get a fucking life.
In keeping with tradition,
when Ackles is thought to be dead at the end, he isn't. The
End?
Maybe there is something
reassuring about the old horror tropes being able to support
an entire flick. Perhaps it's supposed to be comforting that
everything about this movie is as familiar as the smell of your
own farts. It wasn't for me. The horror movies of the eighties
sucked corn, and there was a reason. They were derivative and
formulaic. Time has not made the formula any better. Without
a buttload of 3D gimmickry, My Bloody Valentine 3D is
bland and tired. I didn't care about the characters, I didn't
care about the plot.
It's a Two Finger
flick. If you want to see it, see it in 3D. It's gonna suck
in 2D at the movies or the TV.
Want
to tell Filthy Something?