My Bloody Valentine 3D
Directed by Patrick Lussier
Starring Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Betsy Rue
Rated R
Release Date: January 16, 2009

Movies get made on a single gimmick all the time. It’s a shame when creative writing takes a back seat to an idea that gets people into seats just to see it play out. Sometimes, it’s the pairing of two well-known actors, sometimes it’s a single actor playing a nontraditional role, sometimes it’s just visual gimmick. In the case of the remake of My Bloody Valentine 3D it’s the latter, but that should be obvious from the title.

I have to admit that the 3D aspect of the film is the only thing that got me interested to see what would otherwise be a typical slasher flick with a masked mystery man. Though the original may have gathered a strong following two decades ago, the remake is one of those in a long line of remakes that probably should not have been made.

3D has been done before, so it’s nothing to get terribly excited about. Friday the 13th part 3 was in 3D, as was the climax of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. Though the latter only had a small portion of the film driven by this effect, the former looks downright silly when watching it with the added dimension. So I can only imagine the same will be true when this version of My Bloody Valentine is released on DVD. I’m only able to guess because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sit through the entire film again, even though I was allowed to keep my 3D glasses when I left the theater. Sure, some of the scenes looked pretty cool, but not enough to warrant a second viewing.

I wrote a scathing piece regarding the planned Crow remake that discussed how Hollywood is tearing up my favorite movies to bits and using them for kindling in a derelict’s dumpster fire. It’s a few weeks later and sure, I can rectify sound financial reasoning, but I still can’t fathom a good artistic reason for remaking the Crow. Now I find myself in the equally unenviable position of writing about the upcoming Hellraiser remake. My initial reaction is an even deeper feeling of illness than a Crow remake, but attached writer/director Pascal Laugier was able to do something that Crow redux director Stephen Norrington was not — instill me with a feeling of comfort for his decision to tackle the remake.

In an interview with The Northlander of AICN at a post-screening for his most recent horror film Martyrs, Laugier was asked about his plans for the Hellraiser remake, his motivation for accepting the project, and his thoughts on the omnipresent remake trend. For Laugier, remaking Hellraiser is “a child’s dream coming true” and he has no intention of betraying Clive Barker‘s work. “I want to do a fresh film filled with a lot of unexpected and surprising things. At the same time, I want it to be connected to the real, original material,” said Laugier.

Russell Brand — the lanky British rocker guy from Forgetting Sarah Marshall — is currently developing a script for a remake to Dudley Moore‘s 1981 movie, Arthur.

The original followed an alcoholic Moore, who finds himself in a peculiar situation where he’s forced to choose between endless wealth with the women he is marrying, and endless happiness with the girl he’s fallen in love with.

Sounds prime for a romantic comedy remake, if you ask me.

Clive Barker spoke to MTV and said something you hear rarely these days — he’s all for the remakes of his movies Hellraiser and Candyman. He feels that so long as there’s a good story to be told, why not go and re-visit these characters we know and love?

The writer/director goes on to say that the last few Hellraiser movies went and just used the character to make money with no story, so they didn’t work, but if the story is great, he’s excited for the new ones.

Barker also touched on the dreaded PG-13 rating and its place in the horror genre. What he says is pretty much identical to my views on it, so I’m quoting as much as I can get in hopes that maybe Clive Barker throwing it down will be a little clearer to all of those people who say, “They can get away with a lot of stuff in PG-13 these days, so it’s no concern.”