PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY: My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)

The Theory:

Psychoanalytic theory refers to the definition and dynamics of personality development which underlie and guide psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy. First laid out by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work (see psychoanalysis). Psychoanalytic theory came to full prominence as a critical force in the last third of the twentieth century as part of the flow of critical discourse after the 1960s.[1] Freud ceased his analysis of the brain and his physiological studies in order to turn his focus to the study of the mind and the related psychological attributes making up the mind, something not many psychologists were willing to do. His study then included recognizing childhood events that could potentially lead to the mental functioning of adults. He examined the genetic and then the developmental aspects that made the psychoanalytic theory become what it was.

(courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_theory)

The Story:

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Eleven years ago, a cave-in on the north side of a mine trapped six miners. Six days later, rescue teams found five dead miners and the comatose Harry Warden, who survived by killing the other miners with a pickaxe. Tom Hanniger, the mine owner's son, was blamed for the mine disaster because he forgot to vent the methane lines.

The following year on Valentine's Day, Warden wakes from his coma and kills many people. At the abandoned mineshaft that was the site of the disaster, a party is in full swing, attended by many teens, including Axel Palmer, his girlfriend, Irene, Tom Hanniger, and his girlfriend, Sarah. Sarah goes in alone and gets lost looking for Axel and Irene. She runs across a teen and a few seconds later he is killed. She is confronted by Warden in full miner's garb, carrying a bloody pickaxe, and she flees. Axel grabs her and they, along with Irene, hide from the killer. Warden eventually sees the trio, and they run out of the mine, meeting Tom as he comes in. The killer hits Tom with the pickaxe, injuring him, while the other three run for the car and leave Tom behind. Tom runs back into the mine in an attempt to escape Warden. Before Tom can be killed, the police arrive and shoot Warden, who makes his getaway back into the mine.

Ten years later, Tom's father, from whom Tom has been estranged, dies and Tom inherits the mine. Tom returns to town after his father's funeral to sell the mine. Axel is now sheriff and married to Sarah, but he is cheating on her with Megan, who works with Sarah at Sarah's grocery store. After Megan and Axel have sex at his family's old house in the woods, Megan tells Axel that she is pregnant with his child.

Meanwhile, at the motel where Tom is staying, Irene, the motel owner and a trucker are murdered. Later, Tom visits his newly inherited mine. In the mine, Warden appears and forces Tom into a cage; Warden bends the metal latch on the door, making Tom's escape impossible. Warden then murders William "Red" Kirkpatrick the miner who was accompanying Tom. Before the rest of the mining crew arrive, Warden flees, and suspicion falls on Tom, despite the fact that he was locked in a cage the entire time. Axel then asks Jim Burke, the retired sheriff what happened to Warden. The retired sheriff says that he and Ben Foley, the mine manager killed and buried Warden, but when Axel, Tom, and Sarah go to the burial spot, Warden's body is no longer there.

Next, Ben Foley and Megan are killed. The killer then goes to Axel's house and kills Axel's son's baby-sitter Rosa and Jim Burke who was trying to catch him. Tom tries to take Sarah to Axel's house in the woods to convince her that Axel is the killer. Axel calls Sarah while she and Tom are on the road; Axel tells her that Tom has been in a mental hospital and is the killer. Sarah crashes Tom's car and makes her way to Axel's old homestead. She is chased by the killer all the way to the mine. Sarah goes into the shaft where the original murders took place. She is joined by Tom and Axel, and, after a brief stand-off between the men, Axel and Sarah realize that Tom is delusional. A montage then plays out all the murders in the film again, revealing Tom to be the killer. Tom committed the murder in the mine, then locked himself in the cage, hallucinating Warden as his nemesis. Sarah shoots a tank and causes an explosion, triggering a partial cave-in. She and Axel escape, believing Tom to be dead. A rescue team enters the mine to look for survivors, but Tom kills a rescue worker and escapes the scene dressed in that worker's uniform.

(courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Bloody_Valentine_3D)

The Criticism:

The film is about Tom Hanniger, a man that is suffering from delusions, and as a result, kills people without realizing he is the one doing the gruesome deeds. The film makes it a point to reveal the killer’s identity near the end, as is typical slasher movie tradition.

At first, it can be perceived that the killer is heartless, cruel and unfeeling when he is under the influence of the pickaxe. But the deeper the story goes and the bigger the body count gets, we are introduced to a totally new angle, and we are made to view the killer as a victim of his own illness, somebody who wishes to control what fuels him to kill. The final act of the film reveals that, indeed, Tom is responsible for all the murders, but it is also made as a point that Tom was under the effects of schizophrenia when all the murders were taking place. This suggests that Tom is not the villain, but rather, the people that misunderstood him and tried to condemn him (Axel in particular, as is shown throughout the film). Instead of trying to understand his condition, Axel desperately tries to pry Sarah away from him in fears of Tom hurting her and taking her away from her. Sarah, on the contrary, actually tries to get along with Tom on multiple occasions and defends him against Axel’s accusations. In the end, of course, it was revealed that Axel was correct all along, but the events leading to the confrontation in the mine shows that Tom’s immediate environment is partially responsible for aggravating his condition. Tom has been always been the subject of doubt and mistrust after the mine collapse he accidentally caused when he was younger, and the people’s uneasy feeling that manifests towards until the day the murders happened was very evident, and contributed majorly to the return of his illness.

The film mostly speaks, as is usual for horror movies, about moral and social implications, but most importantly, about the psychological consequences our actions can cause to a person.