My Bloody Valentine (2009)

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) Sigh… what is there to say about this My Bloody Valentine remake? As a teen slasher reboot that boasts of its 3D cinematography, it’s like a fusion of every single bad idea that infected Hollywood circa 2009. It’s visually slick, of course (director Patrick Lussier was already a decade-old veteran of medium-budget horror films at that time), but predictably even less engaging than the original. The plot is the same slasher plot except (as the title tells you) transposed around Valentine’s Day. Clearly aping the original, My Bloody Valentine plays up the villain-with-a-gas-mask imagery far more than the original itself. The gleefully unsubtle early-3D-revival cinematography of the film (which came out a year before Avatar) is incredibly intrusive on a 2D screen, which bode poorly for the film’s future reputation now that 3D TVs are on their way out. It’s all aggressively mediocre, especially for a slasher, but it’s not really meant to be anything else than a thriller for teens so who’s going to care? I have a feeling, though, that this version of My Bloody Valentine may age into something like camp in a decade or so, with the 3D cinematography being so over-the-top and combined with 1980s-style gore effects that it may play more as a comedy for horror fans than a horror film. But time will tell.