My Bloody Valentine

Based on the 1981 horror flick of the same name, My Bloody Valentine follows crazed miner Harry Warden (Richard John Walters) as he embarks on a killing spree that leaves 22 coworkers and townspeople dead – with the movie subsequently picking up a decade later and revolving around the chaos that ensues after Harry apparently reappears to finish what he started. It’s worth noting that My Bloody Valentine actually gets off to a relatively promising start, as director Patrick Lussier opens the proceedings with an impressively brutal interlude that effectively evokes the slasher flicks of the 1980s. And while the kill sequences that have been peppered throughout the remainder of the film’s running time are similarly quite entertaining, there’s little doubt that the progressively hackneyed storyline ensures that the lulls between such moments become more and more difficult to stomach – with the super low-rent visuals and almost comical reliance on computer-generated effects only exacerbating the hopelessly uneven atmosphere. This is in spite of the charismatic work from leads Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, and Kerr Smith, though costar Betsy Rue certainly deserves some credit for her brave turn as a perpetually naked victim of the masked miner. The end result is a consistently underwhelming horror endeavor that seems to exist for no reason other than to serve the current 3D fad, as the film’s myriad of problems are only highlighted when viewed in the superior 2D format.

*1/2 out of ****