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My Bloody Valentine

Oh, Patrick Lussier, what happened to you? I may have been one of the only fans of Dracula 2000, but I saw potential for Wes Craven's editor turned director. After releasing a barrage of DTV garbage such as Dracula II, Dracula III, and White Noise 2, Lussier finally made it back to the cinema with My Bloody Valentine, and the result was an epic failure. After being subjected to this mess, I think that I may have to go back and watch Dracula 2000 again to see if I was hallucinating when I found it entertaining.

My Bloody Valentine is filled with shady production values. I don't expect Lussier to have the quality control of a visual genius like Michael Bay, but the stuff he allowed to make the final cut on this film is an embarrassment. A hospital is filled with numerous corpses that look exactly like the cheap dummies that they are. What, you can't hire a bunch of extras and cover them with makeup? There is nothing worse in these new generation horror movies than CGI blood. Once you see the blurry red stuff that does not blend in properly with the actual filmed background, there is no chance of obtaining any kind of emotional reaction other than laughter at the fake carnage. Valentine is filled with numerous CGI assisted kills, and they all look lame. I'm assuming that since the whole movie was filmed for a 3-D release in theatres that this is to blame for the 2-D production looking so wrong on DVD. The camera has a noticeable motion blur when it swings around for quick movement, and the unprocessed colors/ poor lighting look all out of whack. Think of the cheap cameras used in television soap operas and Valentine looks even worse.

I can't comment on the acting in My Bloody Valentine as it is non existent. Jaime King spends the majority of the movie running around in frumpy, oversized shirts. I don't follow celebrity gossip, but unless she was hiding a real life pregnancy, there was no reason for the main heroine to be wearing such strange attire in a horror movie. Kevin Tighe, who did such an outstanding job ruining John Locke's life on Lost, even gives a poor performance which shows how important a quality director is to his actors. Think of the pathetic performance by Mark Wahlberg in The Happening due to the incompetence of M. Night Shyamalan and you have an idea of how truly lost Kevin Tighe is here.

While I don't think that the antagonist's character needs to be dissected to such a degree in order to explain his action in such films as Hannibal Rising and the Halloween remake, it does help to at least have a villain with somewhat of a reasonable motive. Here, a miner is trapped in a cave-in and he suddenly decides to start ripping out the hearts of his fellow co-workers. When he awakens from a coma, he then goes on a rampage in the hospital and starts dicing everyone in sight. Did I miss something here, or is that beyond stupid? Why is he doing this? Do cave-ins make people psychotic, or is it awakening from a coma on Valentine's Day, or is just a half-ass screenplay? I think it's the latter. Having a guy running around in a miner's suit shredding innocent people with his pick axe is an idiotic concept to begin with. Even the poster art looks ridiculous. It's hard to believe that the original would even be remade. I can imagine the conversation when Bloody Valentine was first marketed to an executive at Lionsgate. "Picture this, a pick axe stabbing people completely in 3-D. Those teenagers will eat this up!"

Let me explain one of the film's most asinine scenes in an attempt to persuade anyone who has yet to see the film to stay away. Jamie King and her co-worker, who just happens to be having an affair with her husband, are chased by the mad miner through a grocery store until they barricade themselves in an office. After stopping the maniac miner from entering the door, the two women then open a window and attempt to escape outside. Alas, their plan fails as somehow, the crazy miner has run out of the store and around the building into an alley where he is able to grab the co-worker and mutilate her. Jaime King then vacates the window and runs back to the door where she hits an alarm so the police can come to rescue her. Let me reiterate that she hits the alarm approximately five minutes after entering the room, blocking the door, climbing out a window, and then having her co-worker taken. I guess that makes sense to somebody.

A week before I rented My Bloody Valentine, I was checking out the DVDs for sale at Wal-Mart, and I saw a woman who looked to be in her early 20s purchasing the film. If I had seen this masterpiece of crap earlier, I would have actually asked her what in the world she was thinking.

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