Is There An Award For Full-Frontal Nudity?

My Bloody Valentine 3-D:
2 out of 4

Consider the following scene from My Bloody Valentine 3-D: A blonde woman runs completely naked wearing only stilettos out of a motel room chasing after a man who just left her. She reaches the man and starts arguing with him only to watch a pickax get stabbed into his head. The pickax-wielding killer then chases after the still naked woman. She takes refuge back in her motel room scrambling to find a place to hide, rummaging through a closet of clothes, and still not bothering to cover herself. She hides underneath the bed, a hiding place soon to be discovered by the killer. He proceeds to flip over the mattress, and the woman takes the frame of the bed and uses it as a shield in front of herself as she stands up against the wall. She's still completely naked. And she's still in heels. The bed frame acts as a cage where the point of the pickax can only penetrate so far. She continuously dodges the lunges taken at her face. The killer then goes for a low blow. We're not shown where it strikes, but we get the idea.

This is a by-the-numbers horror flick in every respect, aside from, say, what's described above. The movie goes for shock value and tries to be as gratuitous as possible, and it's actually this aspect of the movie that makes it as bearable as it is. So, thank goodness for 3-D. The effects are cleverly and humorously implemented throughout, which revives the whole experience from having zero entertainment value whatsoever. It's a hybrid of this cutting-edge technology with an old school, generic horror style. The traditionally leaden acting and stale story full of clichés and conventions get tiresome, so when eyeballs, splashes of blood, giant tree limbs, and many angles of a bloody pickax come flying at you, it's a relief.

There's nothing really rewarding about going to see this movie about a mining suit-clad serial killer who, on Valentine's Day, cuts out the hearts of his victims and sets them on display in nice candy boxes except perhaps to take in oodles of gore in three dimensions as opposed to only two. And while there are only so many ways a pickax can creatively murder someone, My Bloody Valentine 3-D could've been a whole lot worse.