My Bloody Valentine 3-D (**1/2)

My Bloody Valentine 3-D.  87 mins.  R.  Directed by Patrick Lussier.  Written by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith.  Starring Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, and Betsy Rue.  

For all its bells and whistles, the 3-D remake of the 1981 splatterfest My Bloody Valentine is nothing more than a novelty item.  Years from now--heck, even months from now when the movie hits DVD, people will look at this as just another forgettable, badly acted horror film.   I'm a fan of the new 3-D craze hitting movie theaters lately, but more so with the technology than with the movies themselves.  Just like last summer's Journey to the Center of the Earth, the new My Bloody Valentine plays more like a theme park ride than an actual movie.  As a ride - it's a lot of fun.  There are plenty of bloody pickaxes hurled at the audience and several good gore gags involving eyeballs, eyesockets, and other body appendages, plus a healthy dose of sex and nudity.  That R-rating is definitely earned.  As a movie - it's just plain stupid: oddly paced, with amateurish direction, abruptly dropped subplots, and acting straight out of a CW show that's been cancelled after a single episode.  Kerr Smith, as the local sherriff and philandering husband to Jaime King, is particularly awful.  Watching My Bloody Valentine, with its one gruesome kill after another, one senses that the movie's sole purpose is to show pickaxes entering as many different body parts as possible.  The axe handle through the mouth and subsequent ripping off of the victim's jaw (as the jaw flies toward the audience) is a personal favorite.  The last stretch of the film keeps you guessing, if not exactly on the edge of your seat, though I could have done without the Fight Clubish ending.  This is the kind of movie best seen in a theater on a Friday night with a sold-out crowd.  In that environment, the 3-D aspect bumps the movie up to a *** star rating.  Take away the 3-D theatrical experience, and you're left with **1/2 stars.

-John