In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be good to do a compare/contrast review of the 1981 original My Bloody Valentine and its 2009 remake. While the stories of each film don’t necessarily revolve around the holiday itself (no one was a jilted lover or humiliated by the object of an affection), the catalyst for the mayhem happens to occur on said holiday, and takes an eerie hold over each town on February 14 each year.

WARNING: There will be spoilers! The original movie is thirty-nine years old, and the remake is eleven. So don’t be a whiny ass bitch if I reveal major plot points, okay?

Let’s start with the original – 1981’s My Bloody Valentine

(directed by George Milhalka; written by Stephan Miller and Beaird)

1961, Valentine Bluffs: During a 100-year Valentine’s Day dance tradition, five men are trapped in an explosion in the town’s mine. The two supervisors, eager to finish work and get to the party, forgot to check the methane levels while the miners were in the tunnels, and…BOOM. Six weeks later, rescue workers finally get through only to find one survivor – Harry Warden. How did he do it, you ask? By killing and eating his coworkers, of course! Naturally, he went insane during the ordeal, and was committed to a mental institution. Exactly one year later, Harry breaks out, and murders the two supervisors responsible for the tragedy. He extracted their hearts, put them in heart-shaped candy boxes, and left them at the town’s dance with a warning: don’t ever have another Valentine’s Day dance again, and he will return every year to make sure they heed his warning.

Twenty years later, the town is having their first Valentine’s Day dance since that terrible day. Kids today don’t give a damn about Harry Warden and all that mumbo jumbo. Especially TJ, who’s returned to town to win back his girl, Sarah, despite her on-going relationship with his old pal, Axel. Tensions ensue, as you might imagine, but it’s nothing compared to what’s coming for them all.

Unfortunately, Harry must have gotten wind of their party plans because the Mayor receives a heart-shaped box, and it ain’t holding a bunch of candy. It contains the bloody heart of…someone (titty woman in the opening scene – no biggie, let’s move on). They can’t prove it’s Warden, but it puts the Mayor and the Sheriff on edge, especially since the mental hospital Harry was committed to has absolutely no record of Harry Warden, which means he’s dead, been transferred, or escaped!

Once another member of the community is murdered, complete with jaunty little rhyming note from Harry Warden, this puts all the old timers on lockdown. The dance is canceled, dammit! But those dang kids just won’t take no for an answer. They decide to have one anyway, in the little union hall next to the mine. What a splendid idea!

Harry takes exception to this, and starts murdering the party goers, one by one.

I can’t exactly explain why, but this is one of my all-time favorite slasher films from the 1980s, and probably ever. It’s not that the acting is superb, or that I don’t see faults in the film. I do. But maybe it’s the purity of the movie that I like so much. This is not one of those big budget, Hollywood monstrosities, packed with beautiful, insipid celebrities. No backlots or sound stages. It was filmed in a real mine, and a real small town in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Most of the characters are developed well, so we care about what happens to them. I really want TJ to win Sarah back, but I feel bad for Axel at the same time; the town launderette maven, Mabel, has a crush on the Sheriff, but he doesn’t find out until after she’s dead (I honestly cried when he received a box of candy from her, post mortem); and honestly, I want Harry to kill EVERYONE.

That said, the bartender (named Happy, if you can believe that) is the cliché of ‘old grumpy man who warns others of trouble’ character. But when he slings the word ‘asshole’ all over the place, it makes him so likeable. Because he ain’t wrong, my dear viewers. And sure, Patty and Howard are annoying as fuck, and a lot of the minor characters are there as fodder. That just means we can enjoy the practical effects of the kills instead of worrying about the absences those deaths bring.

I think the only CGI special effect was the dripping hearts of the opening title – and that was probably good, old fashioned animation. The kills, body parts, blood, crashes and explosions, were all done with practical effects. Several somber scenes (say that five times fast) were given that element of despair or terror because of something simple, not some cheap shitty computer graphic. After the murders start, and the dance is canceled, we can see random paper hearts and streamers blowing down the street, reminding us what could have been. And one scene in the mine, in the area where the men change out of their coveralls, is creepy as fuck. Especially when the clothes start dropping down from the ceiling randomly, putting one character in a maze of coal dusted uniforms and gas masks, before she’s murdered.

The big reveal at the end felt sort of tacked on. Like, ‘Oh, shit. Remember Axel’s dad was one of the supervisors that Harry killed twenty years ago…yeah, that would fuck anyone up, right?’ I mean, I know this is Podunk, Canada, and the eighties, and behavioral sciences weren’t what they are today, but…

However, I do love the fact that Axel survives, and the end shot is just of him, running deeper into the mines, calling out to Harry and laughing manically. The last thing you see is the light on his helmet as it gets smaller and smaller, and then winks out.

So aside from the little nitpicky elements that are really more my hang-ups than real faults that detract from the film (which they don’t), MBV 1981 is a fantastic early slasher film that hits all the right spots at the all right times.

Now, let’s check out the 2009 remake of My Bloody Valentine

(directed by Patrick Lussier, screenplay by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith)

NOTE: The original theatrical release utilized 3D technology, but I’m not going to comment on that aspect. 3D is cool and all, but it gives me a headache, and I never watch that version on the DVD I own.

Most of the basic story elements are the same, but there are a few twists and turns.

The film opens just after the mine collapse, and finding the lone survivor, Harry Warden, but he’s in a coma. After some amount of time, Harry wakes up and starts slaughtering everyone. And I mean everyone that crosses his path, whether they were responsible for the mine explosion or not. All the miners blamed Tom Hanniger, the owner’s son, but he consistently pleads his innocence while trying to pick up the pieces of his life now.

While part of the mine is closed, that doesn’t stop the young population of the town from partying in the abandoned mine shafts. Tom is a little leery of going in (for obvious reasons) but his friends, Axel and Irene, and girlfriend, Sarah, think he just needs to relax. And as soon as he does, Harry shows up and kills more people. While Tom takes a pickaxe to the shoulder, his friends and girlfriend skadoodle.

But that’s okay because the sheriff shows up just in time to blow Harry Warden’s ass into grass, right in front of Tom, who’s splattered with Harry’s blood. Harry runs off into the mines, but another cave in finally finishes him off for good.

Awesome.

Ten years later, Mr. Hanniger dies, and Tom returns to town to sell the mine. His former friend, Axel, is now married to his former girlfriend, Sarah; the entire town is pissed off because who knows what will happened after the mine is sold. But what does Tom care? He just wants to get back out of town and live a normal life, albeit with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals and PTSD.

Unfortunately, Tom’s plan to sell the mine brings Harry Warden back, and he’s on a tear to kill everyone. Again.

But is it Harry? Or is something else more sinister going on?

I admit – I only went to see this at the theater because Jensen Ackles plays Tom Hanniger. Jensen on the big screen, in 3D? Heeellllllz yeah. Probably not the best reason to spend $8 on a movie ticket, but I personally believe I got more than my money’s worth.

And the film wasn’t all that bad either!

Right off the bat, this version of MBV is much gorier, and seems to have a higher body count than the original, though according to Dead-Meat Wiki, the remake only has a couple more in total. (My copy of the original was the super edited version to avoid an X rating at the time; hopefully I’ll get my hands on the uncut/restored version someday.) There are hacked up bodies all over the hospital, and scattered throughout the mine. And this is all before Harry is killed in a cave in. Aside from the 3D stuff, the kills are made with practical f/x, and some are damned entertaining.

The main characters are well developed. Aside from some opening exposition, we get to witness people’s actions to let us know who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy. And I do love that we get to find out that Harry is really dead, according to the men who murdered him (what, he didn’t die in a mine collapse? The hell you say.) So we now have a good five suspects to choose from as we try to unravel this mystery.

But then as they all die off, we’re left with Axel and Tom. Axel is a great red herring. There’s a lot of shit going on with him – an affair, pregnant mistress, stress at Tom’s return (knowing his wife loved Tom ten years ago), and stress with all the murder. But after watching this film a couple of times, it becomes pretty damned evident that Tom’s been the killer since his return.

My theory is he broke when Harry was shot in front of him years earlier, and even with therapy and drugs, he’s still riding the struggle bus. When he comes back to sell the mine – the memories of that horrible accident, seeing his love married to a philandering asshat, everyone getting pissed off at him – his mind snaps for good, and he becomes Harry. The big reveal scene is pretty damned effective as we see the change come over Tom, and he is lost forever.

Like I said, the killings practical (sans 3D), but there is one computer generated effect seen while Tom is moving down through the mine to kill Sarah and Axel. As he passes each hanging light, he smashes it with a pickaxe, and the image of Harry, in full mining regalia, is superimposed over Tom’s body. Very effective, and rather chilling. And of course, the final scene, after Harry (Tom) sneaks out of the collapsed mine in a rescue worker’s uniform, he offers the camera a quick, knowing glance, before disappearing off into the night.

Yaaasssss….

While this is not a perfect remake or reimagining (are there any of those?), this was done well and we end up with a very entertaining film, with lots of blood and gore, and just enough story twists/changes that freshen up the legend a bit.

So basically, the take away here is both films are good and worth watching (maybe the original a titch more because this is my column and I say so). Maybe watch both and see which one works better for you or if you are entertained equally by both. It could happen…

Long Live Harry Warden!

The Monkey Is In.

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