Movie review: My Bloody Valentine (2009)

Synopsis: A mining community is rocked when a mine collapses and in order to save himself, one of the miners kills six other miners. He wakes up from a coma on Valentine’s Day and the town discovers that he now has a taste for murder as he goes on a killing spree, with one of the only survivors being Tom (Jensen Ackles) the son of the owner of the mine. Ten years after the killings Tom returns to town and reopens the mystery of who the murderer was. Who will survive the swing of the miners pickaxe as the rampage starts again? Director: Patrick Lussier Starring: Jensen Ackles, Jaime King & Kerr Smith Review: I’ll be honest, I only watched this movie because I have a crush on Jensen Ackles (yep, I’m a super Supernatural fan!) but I wasn’t disappointed. The premise of a masked serial killer stalking screaming teens has been done to death (excuse the pun) by a multitude of other and better movies but However, I think the problem with the movie is that you don’t care for any of the characters. There’s more tell than show as the actions moves along quickly and I really don’t like being told how I’m supposed to feel about the characters or forced attempts at making us care with ham-fisted ‘she’s a mother, love her’ or bad guys suddenly attempting to be good because he’s realised how much he loves his wife. It’s handled poorly by the director but the actors try their best with an uneven script. The other gripe I have with the movie is that it’s blatantly been made for 3D audiences, with pickaxes flying at the audience. I’m not a huge fan of 3D in movies like this: it doesn’t add anything to the story and when the action is determined by where the blood will spray, I think it loses a certain credibility (see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter where all the action is directed for 3D which makes much of it insensible on a 2D screen). However, for a fan of Ackles, there’s plenty of they cheeky pout and the ending is well done, if not really a surprise.