Movie Club: My Bloody Valentine (2009)
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be fitting for me to watch and review 2009’s My Bloody Valentine, mostly because I was bored, and this movie seems to be pretty infamous.
After watching, I can now say I understand why this movie would be infamous, and I feel I can also confidently say that this sure is one of the movies of all time. Meaning, this movie sure as hell did do…well, things.
But enough talk, let’s get into the plot summary, and spoilers are of course to follow.
My Bloody Valentine opens in a truly epic fashion, with a newspaper/voiceover exposition dump, clueing us into a mining disaster that has just occurred, which has resulted in the deaths of many miners, with the sole survivor Harry Warden (Chris Carnel) only making it by killing the others to save oxygen, but somehow this made him slip into a coma. We also learn that the disaster was caused by the mine owners son Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), as he simply forgot to “bleed the lines”, which I guess led to a gas build up, and subsequently the collapse. During this exposition dump we also learn that Tom faced zero legal repercussions, and experiences minimal hatred from the town, while somehow, Harry Warden is universally hated because he killed the others he was trapped with. After this, we end up watching Harry Warden emerge from his coma in the hospital, and then as he proceeds to go on a killing rampage in the hospital, and then makes his way back to the mine, where Tom, his girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King), her friend Irene (Betsy Rue), and Irene’s boyfriend Axel (Kerr Smith) are attending I guess a random mine party in the closed mine. Tom is understandably hesitant to enter the mine, and he ends up running to the car to grab beer, while Sarah, Axel, and Irene go into the mine to join the party. When they arrive, they find the other partygoers murdered, and Sarah, Axel, and Irene are nearly killed by Harry Warden, who emerges in full mining gear, but ends up getting distracted by Tom, who he nearly kills before Sherrif Burke (Tom Atkins), and officer Hinch (Bingo O’Malley) arrive, and chase Harry further into the mine, where they end up killing him, and subsequently burying him in the woods. We then jump ten years into the future, and find out that Sarah and Tom broke up, and she married Axel, while Irene has turned into a truck stop hooker, and Tom has vanished. However, Tom returns since his dad died and he intends to sell the mine, much to the chagrin of the townspeople, who seemingly hate him more for this than they do for causing the mine to collapse ten years ago. Tom then reconnects with Sarah, and the two share a will they won’t they plot for the rest of the movie. Also, around this time we learn that Axel is cheating on Sarah with her coworker Megan (Megan Boone), and Megan is now pregnant with Axel’s child, which is bad, but even worse considering that Sarah and Axel already have a kid together. After this, things get pretty schlocky and straight forward, as a serial killer who dresses in the same mining gear that Harry Warden wore starts terrorizing the town, beginning with him killing Irene, and then proceeding to kill a miner, Sherrif Burke and Hinch, Megan, and assorted other townspeople. While this is going on, Axel suspects Tom is the killer, and he ends up discovering that Tom spent the last seven years in a mental institution, and he informs Sarah, who once again seems torn between her old love and her husband. This all culminates with Sarah being semi kidnapped by Tom, who turns out is the killer and has slipped into a psychosis and taken up the mantle of Harry Warden, and the movie ends with Axel and Sarah fighting Tom in the mine where it all began, with a new mine collapse seemingly killing Tom, while Sarah and Axel escape, and promise to rekindle their marriage. The movie however does end with Tom waking up in the rubble, killing a firefighter and escaping in stolen firefighter gear, and we are left wondering if he still thinks he’s Harry Warden, or if he has come back to reality/himself.
There you have it, a plot summary that I’m sure we all saw coming, and what a plot at that. You know, for the first I’d say third of this movie, I was really entertained. Sure, it was bad, but it was funny bad. It was almost endearing to hear this dialogue, and experience the nonsensical plot, but after that first third, things got stale really fast, and what had previously amused me, started to really bore me. If I had to make a comparison, it was like watching Megalopolis again because it was so funny how bad it was at first, but then it just hits you that there’s still an hour left, and all you can think is, “oh my god”.
That said, I fully understand this is a bad movie, but still, some of the dialogue and story choices here just baffle me. For example, why in god’s name was the town more pissed at Harry Warden than they were at Tom? I understand Harry killed a bunch of miners, but hello, Tom literally caused that and his defense was just, “I forgot”. Are you telling me that a town full of people collectively thought that shit happens sometimes and even though that led to a mine collapse, it’s fine, but a person who was literally in a life-or-death situation is the villain? Really?!? There’s also a really wild conversation between Tom and Axel, where Axel thinks Tom is trying to sleep with Sarah (you know, that thing Axel isn’t doing because he’s too busy sleeping with Megan), and Axel says to Tom, “Are you talking about Sarah? My wife? Who lives in my house? Who I have sex with!”, and wow, that is sure as hell something to say. I’m not really sure I see the thought progression there, but I’ll give the guy who is actively cheating on his wife the benefit of the doubt, because after all, he’s going through it wondering if his wife is cheating on him too!
Another thing I despised was the very obvious intent to make this a 3-D movie. I have always hated 3-D because it looks terrible, and also, it deludes studios into making shitty movies that constantly have either up-close shots, or things flying toward the camera, and while it looks terrible in actual 3-D, it looks even worse watching it on a normal screen. Truly awful stuff, and possibly my least favorite part of this movie.
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I honestly feel a bit bad ragging on this movie this much. I mean, what was I really expecting out of this, and I feel like the joke is more on me for having certain quality expectations than it is on My Bloody Valentine, a movie infamous for being pretty bad.
All in all, this was not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but it certainly was far from the best. Because of this, I rated this movie as 2 stars on Letterboxd, and I did not give it a like.
Conclusion
This movie may have been pretty bad, but I feel pretty good because we’ve been on a collective writing/watching/reviewing spree.
I mean, four movies reviewed in four days is nothing to scoff at. Plus, I am seeing Wuthering Heights tonight (I’m writing this Wednesday), and I will have that review published tomorrow (Friday 2/20).
So, all in all, I’d say this has been some pretty good stuff, and the review train isn’t stopping anytime soon.
Looking ahead, after tomorrow’s review, my next review will come out Monday the 23rd, and that will be on How To Make A Killing. I also do plan on seeing Psycho Killer at some point too, and I expect that to be published either late next week, or early the following, and Scream 7 will be reviewed soon as well.
That said, you’ll be seeing plenty from me soon, and I look forward to keeping the reviews coming!
