My Review of My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)

 

Written by Todd Farmer And Zane Smith

Directed by Patrick Lussier

Axel: "Are you there, Harry? You living inside Tom? Huh? Are you in there?"

Tom: "Oh... I'm right here."

Axel: "I fucking knew it!"

Yesterday I reviewed the original movie from 1981 and last night, I watched the remake from 2009. Horror remakes from the 2000s were certainly a thing, weren't they? They either completely missed the point or were just straight up bad.

Oddly enough, this one managed to fall into neither category. Now I'm not saying it's an amazing movie by any stretch of the imagination but it's certainly an entertaining one and more than I expected it to be.

The opening of the movie had The Miner aka Harry Warden (Richard John Walters) attacking his fellow miners following an explosion that the mine owner's son, Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles) from the previous year. Other survivors from Harry's attack included Tom's childhood sweetheart Sarah Mercer (Jamie King), rival Axel Palmer (Kerr Smith) and the unfortunate Irene (Betsy Rue).

Cut to a decade later and you've got Sarah and Axel (now the town Sheriff) in an unhappy marriage with the latter having an affair with Sarah's co-worker, Megan (Megan Boone). Then there's Tom returning to the town in order to sell off his father's mine, which both Ben Foley (Kevin Tighe) and Sheriff Jim Burke (Tom Atkins) were opposed to.

Anyways, the Miner came back to life and throughout the movie we saw various characters getting gruesomely killed as suspicion grew heavily on Tom. I mentioned in my review for the original that I didn't care for the Tom/Sarah/Axel triangle and I kind of don't here too but it's actually better written compared to the original itself.

Another good thing about this movie was the change of killer. The original had Axel being the killer but here, it was Tom who was suffering from split personalities. It actually worked as a reveal and again, the last scene left it open for a sequel. 

- Fans of a certain horror franchise would've spotted both Tom Atkins and Betsy Rue, the latter being a sequel to a remake released months after this one.

- Despite being a massive hit, a sequel didn't happen because of the poor critical reception this one got.

- Todd Farmer who co-wrote the movie also had a role of a sleazy truck driver named Frank.

- Chronology: We go from Valentine's Day in 1997, 1998 and 2008 in the mining town.

I know it's not a beloved remake by any stretch but I had a pleasantly good time with My Bloody Valentine 3D. There's some good performances from the lead cast and the kills are impressive enough with some nice nods to the original.

Rating: 7 out of 10