No Surrender Cinema: My Bloody Valentine (2009)
A tragic accident serves as the origin story for a killer who awakens from a coma to terrorize a town on Valentine’s Day. The night ended with murderous miner Harry Warden believed to be dead, but if that’s true then who is it that’s causing the town’s population to decrease ten years later? I’m here to ask you to “Be Mine 4 Ever”…or at least just for as long as it takes you to read this No Surrender Cinema that gets to the heart of 2009’s My Bloody Valentine remake!
Teenagers make stupid mistakes, but for Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles of Supernatural and The Boys) the one he makes has repercussions that no one could imagine. You see, Tom’s father owns a mine in the small town of Harmony, which the local economy seems to be based around. On Valentine’s Day in 1997, Tom’s irresponsibility causes an explosion at the mine, trapping six miners including Harry Warden, a miner who had previously argued with Tom. When the rescue team arrives they find Warden as the only survivor, but it’s soon discovered that the explosion didn’t kill the miners; Warden killed all five of his co-workers as a means to conserve oxygen! The accident put the killer in a coma, but Warden awakens one year to the day later and immediately resumes his killing ways, creating a bloodstained path out of the hospital in the early moments of the film.
The poor, unfortunate souls working and recuperating in the hospital were nothing more than gory fodder to kick off Warden’s reawakening, because his main focus is on returning to the scene of the crime. It just so happens that a bunch of teens including Tom, his girlfriend Sarah, best pal Axel, Axel’s girl Irene, and others are having a Valentine’s Day party at the mine. Warden crashes the party, dressed in miner’s gear and wielding a pickaxe, and dispatches of a few youngsters before targeting Tom’s inner circle. Axel, Irene, and Sarah narrowly escape, but it’s not long before the source of Warden’s rampage, Tom, is confronted by the monster he inadvertently created. Tom’s life is spared only by the timely arrival of Sheriff Burke (the legendary Tom Atkins), who puts a few bullets in Harry, sending him fleeing deeper into the darkness of the mine.
This is the point where My Bloody Valentine time-jumps by a decade, bringing us back to Harmony in the present day. It’s a dull, drab community now being protected by Axel, who has become Sheriff. He’s also married Sarah, his best friend’s girl, though he’s having an affair with a younger woman (Megan Boone, pre-The Blacklist fame) who is smitten with him. And pregnant, as she excitedly reveals to him during their Valentine’s tryst. Axel is less than enthused by this news, about as enthused as he and the rest of the town (save for Sarah, who has some unresolved feelings for her old beau) are to see Tom Hanniger return. You see, since Tom was responsible for the accident that trapped Warden and the other miners all those years ago, he’s been taking the brunt of the blame for Harry’s slaughtering of the townsfolk. Poor guy is grieving his father, about to sell the mine and try to put it all behind him, and every time he turns around he’s reminded why he’s persona non grata in Harmony.
If the townsfolk weren’t happy to see Tom, then they’re gonna be real unhappy when they find out that none other than Harry Warden has resurfaced! Warden claims his first victims of his latest spree at the motel where Tom is staying (and one of whom turns out to be Irene, Axel’s old girlfriend who has become the…promiscuous type), and that revelation just fuels Axel’s disdain towards Tom. Seeing that the bond between Tom and Sarah seems to be strengthening again, Axel’s jealousy starts to override his professional duties, but the romantic tug of war between the two former friends has to take a backseat to another startling revelation; Harry Warden can’t possibly be doing the killing, because Harry Warden is dead! It turns out that Sheriff Burke, Ben Foley (the manager of the mine), and some of the town’s elders decided to partake in a bit of good ol’ fashioned vigilante justice and put Harry down for good, which means they’ve got a copycat on their hands…at least that’s what they thought before they discovered that Harry Warden’s grave is now empty!
From this point on, the finger-pointing increases, leaving the audience to guess who could be committing the murders. Has Harry risen yet again for another Valentine’s Day bloodbath? Is Axel hiding a more sinister side than just being an adulterous asshole? Has Tom returned with something more horrific on his mind than just selling the mine? Could Megan, Axel’s obsessive lover, be wiping people out so that they can finally be together? As the remaining runtime of My Bloody Valentine rolls on, many of these questions and more are answered courtesy of a growing body count. It all boils down to a standoff back at the mine between Sarah, Tom, Axel, and The Miner Who May Or May Not Be Harry Warden. While I’ve seen some say that the final reveal felt too obvious to many, I give the writers of this remake a ton of credit for putting a different, modern spin on it. It was something that I certainly didn’t expect, and it seems even more current and topical now than it had even 15 years ago.
Gratuitous nudity, gore aplenty, and a solid cast…this film didn’t feel like a remake as much as it felt like a true throwback to the glory (gory?) days of yesteryear. In fact, I can’t even compare this My Bloody Valentine to the original film, because while that would normally be one’s first instinct, I think the 2009 version does enough to stand on its own merits. The film does feel dated even now, with the 3D gimmick causing the need for some silly looking kills, and the aesthetic is more akin to something from the nu-metal, blue tint era of horror that was big almost a decade prior to this film’s release. It’s like a throwback of a remake, or a remake of a throwback…either way, none of what I said is a disservice to the enjoyment of the film. Ackles, Smith, and King all do a good job of being the focal points, though the inclusion of the two male leads can at times make one feel like they’re watching the latest CW drama (at least during the parts where someone isn’t getting a pickaxe driven into their skull). Luckily the action is always right around the corner from the melodrama of the Tom/Sarah/Axel triangle, and even the romantic angle plays a role in the leadup to the film’s climactic scene.
I’ve always felt that My Bloody Valentine was one of the better, if not the best of the late 00’s/early 10’s horror remakes, mainly because as I said earlier it actively tried to do something different. Sometimes that works (the Friday The 13th remake) and sometimes it sucks (the Nightmare On Elm Street remake), but this film definitely deserves to belong in the former category. So if you and that special person in your life are looking for something to watch tonight (and for an excuse to get closer while you’re on the couch), head over to Tubi where you can watch this one for free right now. It’s also available on DVD and Blu-Ray on Amazon for those of you who want to own it and make viewing it a Valentine’s Day tradition. Hey, it’s certainly better than the tradition that ol’ Harry Warden had.
