To make things easy for those who just want the final verdict, and to cut through the bullshit – this movie ROCKED! Director Patric Lussier definitely knew what his target audience wanted, and he delivers in spades. Is it a classic? No, not really, but as the first movie to usher in the new era of three dimensional horror, it has certainly struck its pick axe firmly into the skull of this horror fan. The beauty of this film is that its got enough grue to satisfy the gore hounds like me, but also enough cheap jump scares to make sure little Billy gets to cop a few feels on his date when she’s burying her face in his jacket. Needless to say, it achieves its goal – its a fun slasher flick that is a great way to spend a Friday night. For those interested in more (including some spoilers) please read on.

I’m pretty sure that no one actually cares about the plot, but for those who are curious it goes something like this. Harmony is a small town and its main point of interest (and existence) is the local mine. On Valentines Day the son of the mine’s owner doesn’t listen to one of the other miners and causes a terrible accident that results 6 miners being trapped for weeks. When they finally dig them out only 1 remains, Harry Warden, and it turns out he killed the other 5 with a pick axe. Harry falls into a coma only to awake exactly one year after the terrible accident, and he’s a little less than happy. Harry kills everyone in the hospital and heads over to the local mine where a bunch of teens are having a Valentines day party and proceeds to butcher pretty much all of them in some amazing displays of sheer brutality, more on that later. Luckily Tom (the mine owners son), his girlfriend Sarah, his best friend Axel, and Megan (the slutty chick) make it out alive. This may sound like an entire movie, but this is literally the first 10 minutes of the film, and to me it says a lot that a slasher film has a body count of at least 30+ that soon.

Jump to 10 YEARS LATER (the title card was in 3D even!), Tom’s been M.I.A from Harmony since the “incident” but returns to settle some business and sell the mine which he inherited after his father died. His friend Axel is now the town sheriff who is married to Tom’s ex-girlfriend Sarah, and they have a young child. However, Axel is cheating on his wife with one of her own employees and has recently impregnated her, and Sarah finds out Tom is back in town and is quickly reminded that he is the true love of her life. Don’t worry; it doesn’t turn into a chick flick. So, as soon as Tom returns to town, murders start happening again and Tom is convinced that Harry Warden has come back to reek more havoc on the poor towns people of Harmony. From there we get a lot of death scenes intermixed with some retarded love triangle stuff, followed by more death. There is a hint of mystery as your never quite sure if the killer is really Harry Warden or maybe someone else altogether, and a few nice red herrings are thrown out there for the audience to chew on.

Looking at the history of slashers, they are more or less America’s take on the Italian Giallo genre, and this is where Patrick Lussier really got it right. This movie is not a post-Scream slasher…there are no jokes about “I’ll be right back” or references to movies that have come before. This is some good old fashioned psycho killer action, and boy does it rock. And like the Giallo films that came before it, there is a little mystery thrown in for good measure, but the real treat here is the iconic slasher himself and the way in which he disposes of his victims.

Half the fun of this movie is seeing the different deaths, and you can tell they put a lot of thought into them. What’s great is that this is nothing like the current trend of long drawn-out deaths found in torture porn flicks (ala Hostel, Saw, etc), but rather these deaths are quick, dirty, and extremely gruesome. Without ruining them, I will just lay out my favorite which happens to be the first kill of the movie. A guy is standing there talking when BAM a pick axe comes from behind his head, and out the other side through his eye socket, with his eye on the end of the pick axe in 3D. It happens so fast and is so totally unexpected that it made for a great kill. And that’s just the first one, there are at least 5 other notable kills in the movie and each one really has some art to it. I have to give a lot of credit to the filmmakers that they had to balls to go all the way with the gore, and even more credit that they were able to get this stuff past the MPAA. In fact, there is one scene that lasts for probably 5 minutes that has a completely naked chick the entire time. And I’m not talking just tities but full on frontal nudity, so yes you even get to see some labia as well.

What about the 3D? Well, first and foremost the 3D is what makes this movie work in the first place. I’ll reserve judgment until I own the BluRay later this year, but my guess is this film won’t play as well without the 3D. A good portion of the movie was obviously shot with 3D in mind, and almost every kill used the third dimension to really enhance its overall effectiveness. I still think its a great slasher flick, but the 3D is what will (hopefully) make this one a big success. Even the scenes that aren’t an obvious 3D “gimmick” look great in 3D, it really feels like your “in the movie” as everything literally pops off the screen.

So in conclusion I HIGHLY recommend this film. I may differ from a lot of movie buffs, but when I go to the theater I want to be entertained, and this is one goddamn entertaining flick. You get blood, guts, tits, pussy, mystery, midget death, and some really cool and effective 3D….what’s not to love?

4 Bloody Pickaxes out of 5