I know that it's beyond-optimism-stupid to keep watching shitty schlock or exploitation films and expect something worth seeing but I still get disappointed. The whole reason that I went to see this is because I'd never seen a 3-D film in a movie theatre before and I'm up for all things. So, I knew what I was getting into but I'm still surprised by what I saw. I genuinely thought that Wes Craven's Scream had killed off this type of dumb slasher movie with its intelligent post-modern deconstruction of the genre and its 'rules'. I accepted the regrettable by-product of so-called torture porn movies like Saw and Hostel as a means for screenwriters to find new avenues for the slasher genre. Admittedly it was just an assumption as I rarely watch this kind of thing. But yes, I thought that at the very least there would have to be a movement towards a bit more ingenuity in the storyline rather than just in the number ways to get heads rolling across the screen. Maybe there is and this was just a one-off. It did occur to me that this may have been written by a couple of Producers over lunch during the screenwriters' strike. I could imagine them working out how to write a horror film by cramming every cliche known to man: right, it's set in a small town on the anniversary of a tragedy or massacre and there's an indesctructable psycho in a mask chopping up nubile teenagers with their titties out and the whole town are saved by the jock with the heart of gold coming to the rescue to save his girlfriend. For that's what this film is. No I'm not joking, that is the storyline. The only way it could be any more derivative is if it was a sequel to another film with the exact same storyline (and the way the film ended, you have to know that the sequel will be along next February or the one afterwards). There is nothing to be interested in or excited by here- even the 3-D is boring. Fuck it, I don't even remember jumping once. I know I can be a know-it-all art-fart but this is such a terrible genre picture that it's almost unbelievable. And it's so badly filmed that helicopter shots of a mining works look like miniatures more than they look real- what skill that takes. This isn't even entertaining in a so-bad-it's-good way.
If I want to see deep-voiced, handsome American teenagers (who are NEVER played by anyone under twenty-five) being chopped up, I won't go and see My Bloody Valentine 3-D part 2, I'll get hold of John Carpenter's Hallowe'en and see it done properly. I will never see this again. 0/10
