Special Features
DVD Corner: My Bloody Valentine 3D
By Greg Kaczynski |
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 Many a horror fan has rued the day that the current and seemingly endless march of classic remakes started. Looking down the pipeline of the next five years, the future looks downright terrifying: Hellraiser, Fright Night and A Nightmare on Elm Street, all untouchable classics in this reviewer’s mind, are on their way along with countless others. All the same, it’s difficult to be completely cynical when there were those gems that turned out pretty damn good, notably Dawn of the Dead in 2004, or some might even argue (I would) The Hills Have Eyes a couple years later. I would even vouch for the Friday the 13th reboot. For every one of these that got it right, though, there’s a Texas Chainsaw Massacre that gets it so very wrong.
Luckily, My Bloody Valentine 3D definitely falls in the former category. It pulls the necessary details from the 1981 original, connecting the two films, but then moves on and makes its own story. It maintains the fact that it is, at its core, a slasher film, and a bloody, sexy one at that. From the opening scene, you know that the cast and crew aren't going to pull any punches, a refreshing change from the spate of PG-13 “horror” films that have limped into theaters over the past decade or so.
Valentine tells the story of a small town haunted by a crazed miner who slaughtered an entire hospital staff and a bunch of kids back in the day after being trapped in a mine explosion. Ten years later, the kid responsible for the explosion (Tom Hanniger, played by Jensen Ackles) returns to the town to take care of some business surrounding the old mine and his return stirs up some old drama between a number of the townies. Plus, people start getting killed.
 The filmmakers do a fantastic job of giving audiences a Scooby-Doo-esque mystery where everyone is a suspect and all seem to have some kind of motive for wanting certain people dead. Is Tom’s return the lynchpin for everything? Or is his return a useful smoke screen for whomever is doing the killing? There is a juicy agenda between so many characters, the relationships are rich and, in fact, to divulge any of the details between them would be teetering on spoiling some secrets. Let’s just say that the average filmgoer will be guessing until the final frame, and that is a very good thing.
On top of this horror film buffet, when Valentine was released in theaters earlier this year, it was in the newfangled digital 3-D that is all the rage these days. It is a process that has to be seen to be believed. The colors retain their original richness, the depth of field is truly stunning, it’s like no 3-D effect viewers have ever seen before, and seeing Valentine in the theater was a truly incredible experience. The surprising thing was that when this DVD was announced, Lionsgate said it was going to include the 3-D aspect, something not often done for a home video release.
The 3-D transfer, unfortunately, is not great, mostly because, for whatever reason (I’m assuming technological constraints), they’ve resorted back to the fuchsia/green style of the olden days. This means that the colors on the screen look drab and the images are often blurry. It’s really too bad, because the experience in the theater was bordering on the religious. The 3-D effects still look reasonably good, but the overall quality suffers.
The good/bad news is that they also provide the non-3-D transfer. In this transfer, the colors look sharp, the image is crisp and regardless of the 3-D or not, the sound transfer is fantastic. However, here’s the bad news about the non-3-D transfer: it looks like it was shot on video. Perhaps it’s the way it needed to be shot for the digital 3-D to work properly, but it makes the production values look like a made-for-TV movie. It doesn’t ruin it, but it’s definitely distracting.
 It’s frustrating because the filmmakers were clearly trying to do right by the fans, but the end results just aren’t very impressive either way. Hopefully there can be proper technology developed to get the digital 3-D transferred properly for future films that use the process.
The special features on the 2-Disc Special Edition release (Lionsgate; MSRP: $34.98) are fairly typical. The commentary features director Patrick Lussier and co-writer/actor Todd Farmer chatting about the process of writing the film, focusing on the relationships, casting and lots of anecdotes. It is interesting when they get into the clues they’ve laid behind which point to the killer, so don’t watch Valentine for the first time with the commentary on.
The second disc has a couple interesting bits, but one has to wonder if it justifies a second disc and the bloated price tag (a standard, single-disc DVD is also available for $29.95).
“Deep Inside My Bloody Valentine” (7:16) is a bare bones making-of featurette. It focuses mainly on shooting in the mine, but briefly touches on some of the character relationships and the imagining of the Miner.
“Sex, Blood, and Screams” (5:44) is a showcase of the practical special effects used in the film, which is particularly interesting for those of us who loved horror before the digital revolution.
Then there’s the requisite deleted and extended scenes, a batch of dull clips lumbering along at a bulky 19 minutes.
 There’s also an alternate ending (1:02), which is barely different from the actual ending, and sadly only two minutes of gag reel. The gag reel is probably the most interesting thing on the second disc, and it really is too bad that the studio doesn’t give viewers more.
All that being said, it’s hard to totally discredit this DVD release. The movie is still great. It’s gory, it’s sexy, it’s provocative, which are all hard things to find in a horror film these days, but it’s just too bad the whole package couldn’t be a better deal. Hopefully studios will soon find a way to bring the incredible new digital 3-D technology home.
My Bloody Valentine 3D is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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