Movies | Movie Review | 'My Bloody Valentine 3D'

Watch Out for That Pickax; It’s Hurtling From the Screen

My Bloody Valentine

  • Directed by Patrick Lussier
  • Horror, Thriller
  • R
  • 1h 41m

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

Jaime King and Megan Boone in “My Bloody Valentine 3D.” Michael Roberts/Lionsgate

Ever since the first blind date, horror and romance have been natural bedfellows. So perhaps the most remarkable thing about George Mihalka’s 1981 Canadian slasher, “My Bloody Valentine,” is its lack of sequels: despite an actual plot and a setting bursting with pounce possibilities, this fondly remembered genre piece has, until now, remained inviolate.

In “My Bloody Valentine 3D” the director Patrick Lussier takes few liberties with Stephen Miller’s original story. Ten years after a Valentine’s Day massacre in a small mining town, Harmony, Tom (Jensen Ackles), who fled after the slaughter, returns to sell the family mine.

In the way of small towns, Tom’s ex-girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King), is now married to his former best friend and current town sheriff, Axel (the singularly narcotic Kerr Smith), though her eyes still do this weird, flickery thing whenever she looks at Tom. Maybe she just needs an ophthalmologist.

Then, on Valentine’s Day, freshly pickaxed bodies sprout all over town, their hearts nestled in blood-red candy boxes. Axel suspects Tom (because he keeps furtively popping pills); Tom suspects Axel (because of his unconvincing facial hair); and Sarah suspects she needs a manicure.

Yet few will notice the WB-bland acting or care that the creaky screenplay (by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith) is mercilessly at odds with the director’s fine sense of pacing. From the moment you duck a flying mandible and gaze, mesmerized, at a severed hand oozing two inches from your nose, you’ll be convinced that the extra dimension was worth seeking out.

A strange synergy of old and new, “My Bloody Valentine 3D” blends cutting-edge technology and old-school prosthetics to produce something both familiar and alien: gore you can believe in. Stabilized by the welcome faces of old pros like Kevin Tighe and the genre giant Tom Atkins (“The Fog,” “Creepshow”), the movie’s staggering depth perception — you’ve seen a body cavity before, but how many have you fallen into? — is never disorienting.

And if the wheezing, gas-masked villain is less than inspired, his parking-lot-to-motel-room pursuit of a naked, terrified young woman (Betsy Rue) is the most entertaining five minutes I’ve spent in a movie theater in quite some time. If there were an award for acting full-frontally while wearing sky-high stilettos, Ms. Rue would surely teeter away with it.

Partly filmed in an abandoned Pennsylvania mine, “My Bloody Valentine 3D” benefits from its dank claustrophobia. “I hit my head a lot,” Kerr Smith says in the press notes, recalling his days underground. That explains so much.

“My Bloody Valentine 3D” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Complete nudity and incomplete corpses.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D

Opened on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Patrick Lussier; written by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith, based on the screenplay by John Beaird and the story by Stephen Miller; director of photography, Brian Pearson; edited by Mr. Lussier and Cynthia Ludwig; music by Michael Wandmacher; production designer, Zack Grobler; produced by Jack Murray; released by Lionsgate. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes.

WITH: Jensen Ackles (Tom Hanniger), Jaime King (Sarah Palmer), Kerr Smith (Axel Palmer), Kevin Tighe (Ben Foley), Edi Gathegi (Deputy Martin), Tom Atkins (Burke), Betsy Rue (Irene) and Megan Boone (Megan).

A version of this review appears in print on , on Page C11 of the New York edition with the headline: Watch Out for That Pickax; It’s Hurtling From the Screen. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe