My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Directed by Patrick Lussier
Ten years after a Valentine's Day tragedy claimed the lives of five miners, Harry Warden returns for a vengeful massacre among teen sweethearts gearing up for another party.
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4 films that influenced My Bloody Valentine
What critics say influenced My Bloody Valentine
The overly dramatic dialogue, which could have been lifted straight out of The O.C. , combined with its deliriously over-the-top blood drenched carnage also evokes the Scream films.
This is all very familiar - and take out the 3D element and My Bloody Valentine wouldn't be half as fun - but the film admirably decides not to take itself too seriously or push smug Scream -like self-reflexivity.
Director Patrick Lussier (noted as the editor of the Scream franchise) mostly just lines up the usual pretty girls and even prettier boys on an assembly line of slaughter, which ensures that his movie won’t live beyond a few weekends of audiences out for a cheap, lazy thrill.
Or someone else? "My Bloody Valentine" may not be horribly acted, but in a post-"Scream" and post-"Scary Movie" era, it's difficult to squeeze any more blood from this low-brow/high-camp turnip.
It's Scream before Scream, minus the deconstructive verve.
My Bloody Valentine could have easily played along side Planet Terror and Death Proof as the third part of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s tribute to Grindhouse exploitation cinema.
And while there are a few genuinely creepy sequences and images sprinkled throughout the proceedings (ie Tyler listens to a recording of her own abduction), The Fourth Kind clearly would've benefited from a more conventional approach and a greater emphasis on the characters themselves (Patton's police officer is especially underused) - with the almost ridiculously anti-climactic finale ensuring that the whole thing ends on as abrupt a note as one could possibly envision (ie those viewers expecting a Fire in the Sky -esque third act are going to be sorely disappointed).
Fans of this sort of thing are going to delight in all the hacking, slashing, stabbing, eviscerating and head-splitting, and while some of the better gags are lifted straight out of other, similar motion pictures (most notably Friday the 13th Part 3 and Wrong Turn ) in 3-D they pack a hideous punch entirely different than that of their predecessors.