My Bloody Valentine isn't the best remembered of the 1980's slashers but it's certainly one I look upon with affection. Not only was it made in my home country it offered up some decent kills and had a villain who got a whole Hell of a lot of its mileage from his pickaxe and his miner mask. I can't say I was really surprised when a remake was announced and I got a little excited when I heard it was going to be in 3-D but here I sit, not that long after leaving the theatre, with mixed feelings.

On the one hand I really enjoyed the efficient kill scenes and Gary J. Tunnicliffe's gore effects are pretty damn good. I also had quite the time with all the obvious 3-D moments the makers have thrown in the movie - there's pickaxes hanging over you, a tree branch coming through a car window, and even a shotgun jutting out from the screen. On the other hand, I had plenty of issues with the script, the acting, and how they've updated the story.

Not long after he's accidentally caused a cave in, Tom Hannigan (Jensen Ackles) grudgingly agrees to attend a Valentine's Day party at the, now closed, mine shaft with girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King) only for one of his miner co-workers, Harry Warden, to show-up brandishing a pick-axe and gorily knocking off the attendees. Sarah and a couple of the others get away but Tom is left behind and if it weren't for detective Burke (Tom Atkins) showing up and shooting Warden, he would've been just another victim.

Fast forward to ten years later. The town of Harmony is trying to forget about all the bad events in their lives. Sarah's married local punk-turned-sheriff Axel (Kerr Smith) and had a son, the mine is still operational despite some struggles, and Tom's returned in order to sell off the majority portion of the mine he gained after his father, who co-owned it, has died.

Things aren't so easy for Tom, or the residents of Harmony, when it looks like good old Harry isn't dead. Our menacing miner is back in business and knocking off people left and right and stuffing hearts into candy boxes while the script by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith tosses out multiple red herrings, many moments of our killer using the "Jason warp" to get around, and plenty of repetitive dialogue (lots of times someone will say something different ways in the same breath) on its way to a "twist" ending - which you'll pretty much see coming anyway.

As a remake, My Bloody Valentine could've been a lot worse. It's a somewhat pleasing throwback to old school slice 'n' dicers thanks to a high body count and director Patrick Lussier (Dracula 2000, White Noise 2) keeps things moving briskly. They've put in loose ties to the source material thanks to the opening party (which was pretty much the basis of the entire plot of the original) as well as brought back a scene involving a drying machine. But one of my biggest problems with this is that they just didn't use the entire mine setting well enough. There's lots of opportunity for claustrophobic tension in such a location but it's underused. And speaking of underused, the entire "who done it?" plotline was passable and, for the lead role, Ackles' Tom seemed to phase in and out of the story as necessary.

Thank you, Betsy Rue (playing Irene), for having the courage to spend a good five minutes completely naked. It's too bad you had to be killed, but all of us horror fans commend you. And whoever decided to cast Atkins also gets some respect - and the fact they've given him the best send-off is even better. Put these two factors together and it almost makes up for the fact that Ackles and King aren't that great in the lead roles. Ackles is here thanks to his "hunk" status from TV's "Supernatural" and King just can't pull off the scream queen thing - her scared face wasn't doing it for me.

I'm not going to deny I might've been expecting bit more from My Bloody Valentine than what was delivered but it's worth checking out if you're a fan of the sub-genre, if only for Rue's bare breasts and the plentiful bloodshed. It's definitely nothing special but it's not overly terrible either - hence those mixed feelings I mentioned earlier. (Chris Hartley, 1/16/09)

Directed By: Patrick Lussier.
Written By: Todd Farmer, Zane Smith.

Starring: Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Besty Rue.