In the small town of Harmony, a cave-in traps six miners working down in Tunnel No. 5 of the mine owned by the Hanniger company, an accident which is blamed on teenager Tom Hanniger, who failed to properly vent the methane lines. Days later, the rescuers manage to reach the men, finding that five of them are dead and the lone survivor is Harry Warden; upon further investigation, it's discovered that Warden, who slipped into a coma after his rescue, killed the men in order to conserve his own oxygen supply. Some time later, on Valentine's Day, Warden awakens and, remembering a tense conversation he had with Tom before the collapse, remembers that it was his fault. Now completely out of his mind, Warden goes on a horrific massacre at the hospital before making his way back to the mines, specifically to Tunnel No. 5, where the local teenagers are having a party, and kills nearly all of them. He specifically targets Tom, who's there along with his girlfriend Sarah, Axel Palmer, and his date, Irene, and the latter three manage to escape, leaving Tom behind. Just as Warden is about to kill Tom, Sheriff Burke and his deputy arrive and fire upon the killer, who escapes into the depths of the mine. Burke and his deputy pursue Warden, while Tom is left there, covered in the killer's blood and very shaken by what's happened. Ten years later, the memory of the massacre is well-remembered by the town and the media at large. Axel is now the sheriff, is married to Sarah, and they have a young son, but this hasn't stopped Axel from having an affair with Sarah's coworker at the grocery store, Megan. Meanwhile, Tom has returned to town after having been gone since the massacre because, now that his father is dead, he's inherited the mine, which he intends to sell, despite the effect it will have on the townspeople. That night, at the motel that Tom is staying at, Axel's ex-girlfriend, Irene, has sex with a trucker and becomes angry when she learns he secretly videotaped it for his own sick enjoyment. She confronts him about it with a gun, only for him to be killed, along with Irene and the motel manager, by a man in a miner's uniform and gas mask, wielding a pickaxe. The next day, Irene's body is found with her heart removed, which is anonymously delivered to Axel at his office that night in a candy box, and Axel discovers that Frank's camera managed to film the killer. Rumors begin circulating that Harry Warden has returned from the grave, but Axel suspects Tom, since he was at the motel, as well as because of his continuing interest in Sarah. As more murders take place, revolving around those who were associated with both the mine and the earlier massacre, it becomes vital that the killer be unmasked and soon, no matter who it may hurt.
One thing that I like is how, when Tom is revealed to be the killer, the movie gives us a quick montage showing us what really happened in regards to how exactly he first assumed the persona of Harry Warden by digging up his grave and removing his uniform and tools, and how he went into and came out of it during the instances when the murders took place. I especially appreciate that they clarified what exactly happened when he supposedly saw Warden murder the miner known as Red while he was seemingly locked up in a small, chain-linked section of the mine: they show that he killed Red and then locked himself in there before the other mines showed up. Granted, it may not completely match up, as you could wonder how his memory of being locked up and watching the murder was formed, but given the reveal that Tom sees hallucinations of Warden and the split personality angle, I don't think it's too far-fetched to say that Tom's real persona has a kind of out-of-body experience whenever Warden takes over. Okay, maybe it's not perfect, but I think it lines up better than the twist of High Tension, which doesn't even try to explain how things really went down. (For all you fans of that movie, I promise, I'm not trying to antagonize you by bringing it up so much; it's just the first thing that comes to mind whenever we have a situation like this in film.)
Though his role is very small, it's nice to see Tom Atkins here as Burke, the former sheriff who was part of the investigation of Harry Warden following the accident and saved Tom from him when he and his deputy, Hinch, tracked him down to the mine following his rampage at the hospital. Ten years later, Burke is a retired, crusty old man, though he's still good enough to help Tom when he gets caught up in a bar-fight and yells at everybody to just cool it; after the fight, however, he suggests that Tom get out of town, as he won't help him the next time he gets in trouble. Axel later reveals that Burke was part of a posse who, after the massacre, tracked Warden down, killed him, and buried him in a grave in the woods. But, after no body is found at the site, Burke becomes a suspect along with Tom when one of the other posse members turns up dead the next day. That night, Burke suddenly shows up at Axel's house, which is being watched by Deputy Ferris, and tells her that Warden is there. The two of them search the property, Burke wielding his own gun, but he ultimately suffers a very painful and gruesome death at the hands of the killer. Hinch's (Bingo O'Malley) role is a small one, though when the main story comes around, he has to be restrained when he attacks Tom in a bar, blaming him for the murders starting back up and telling that Warden's going to kill him this time. Besides Burke and both Axel and Tom's fathers, another member of the posse that killed Warden is Ben Foley (Kevin Tighe), an old-time miner who appears to have been close to Tom's dad and tries to tell him of the negative impact that selling the mine will have on Harmony, as well as that his father did care about him. As frustrated as he is with Tom's decision to sell the mine, Ben is still good enough to help him when he gets caught up in the bar fight, although he's initially skeptical at his claims that Warden has returned from the dead. But, when they don't find the body at the burial site, he begins to believe it, and when Tom tells that he's probably one of those that Warden will come for, Ben gets drunk at his house that night. When he thinks he hears something outside, he loads a shotgun and walks out on the porch to investigate. Finding nothing, he laughs at himself for being so jumpy, but he's then attacked by the killer, whom he believes to be Warden, and dies a death as grisly as what ultimately happens to Burke.
Megan (Megan Boone) is a woman who works with Sarah at the grocery store... that is when she and Axel aren't having sex in his father's old house in the woods. Despite being something of a friend to Sarah, she has no regrets about what she's doing, going as far as to give Axel a box of Valentine's candy after their latest meeting and coming close to flat-out telling Sarah that Axel isn't there for her anymore, only to be interrupted by the killer appearing at the store. She has a bad habit of bluntly mentioning Warden's crimes much to Sarah's annoyance, and she also tells Axel that she's pregnant but this never comes up again, so whether or not she was telling the truth is never made clear (though, the first time you see her, she tells Sarah that she has to go see the doctor). Altogether, she doesn't have many scenes before she's chased through the store with Sarah, pulled out a window and murdered, the killer writing, "BE MINE 4 EVER," on the wall in her blood, which was what the card in the candy box she gave to Axel said. Irene (Betsy Rue) is first seen in the movie as Axel's girlfriend when they're teens, who goes into the mines with him when he decides to put some distance between himself and Tom when he and Sarah show up at the party. She gets caught up in Harry Warden's rampage there but, thanks to Axel, manages to make it out alive, along with him and Sarah, though come ten years later, Axel has married Sarah and Irene, who was once quite bubbly and happy, has taken to having sex with truckers at a seedy motel near town. As much as this is going make me sound like a pig, I always forget that she's even in the opening, partly because her characterization there is so shallow, but mainly because the part with her that leaves the biggest impression is definitely that scene at the motel, which she spends completely naked. You see every... single... inch of her, be it when she's having sex with Frank, the truck driver (she actually mentions at one point how hot she looks), philosophizing afterward about the origins of Valentine's Day (seriously), becoming enraged when she found out he videoed the whole thing, stomping out into the parking lot and threatening him with a gun, or running from and ultimately meeting her demise at the killer's hands. The scene was originally tended to be less sleazy, with Rue wearing a body-wrap, but when the wrap kept causing problems, Rue herself asked for it to be removed, leading to us getting what we got. In any case, the discovery of her body the next day shakes Axel, given their relationship, and he later calls Sarah and tells her about it before she can hear it from anyone else. Frank, the perverted truck drive who filmed him and Irene having sex for his own personal titillation and shamelessly admits that he just made her into a whore, is Todd Farmer's role and I can't help but wonder if he reserved that part specifically for himself.
Rounding out the cast are Axel's two deputies, Martin (Edi Gathegi), who has a fairly close, as well as professional, relationship with him, not seeming too happy when he learns about Axel's affair, and Ferris (Karen Baum), whose most notable scene comes when she and Burke investigate the Palmer household together and, while she screams in horror at the sight of the killer's handiwork, she ultimately survives and gets Noah to safety offscreen; Rosa (Joy de la Paz), the Palmers' Hispanic housekeeper, often looks after their young son and her death serves as an homage to Mabel's in the original; Noah (Andrew Larson), Axel and Sarah's young son, who narrowly avoids falling victim to the killer along with Rosa and Burke when he's prowling around the house; Red (Jeff Hochendoner), this big, burly miner who also takes a swing at Tom at the bar the day before he's murdered; and Selene (Selene Luma), the dwarf manager of the motel that Tom stays at. The latter is definitely memorable, first off because it's not all the time that a dwarf or midget actor appears in a horror film, second because of her attitude and how she's always chasing after her little bulldog, Louis, telling him at one point to stop being a little shit, and three, because she's not spared at all, despite her small size. While her actual death is a bit obscured, the impression of her not only getting skewered by the pickaxe but also slammed into the lights on the ceiling is very much felt. Finally, you get a little bit more of an impression of what Harry Warden (Richard John Walters) himself was like before he went mad. He definitely does not come across as having been a likable guy, as he's shown giving Tom a hard time about whether or not he knows how to properly vent the methane, and then, there's the notion that he murdered the other miners trapped with him in order to preserve his own oxygen. You also see him in the moments before his bloody rampage when he awakens from his coma, looks around in confusion, and then promptly begins killing everybody he sees.
I'm going to get this off my chest right now: I hate the way this movie looks. I've talked a lot about how much I dislike the way movies made around this time tended to look, and I'm glad it seems like we've now gotten away from that, for the most part, but, typically, I can let it slide if the rest of the movie makes up for it; My Bloody Valentine, however, has so little real substance to it, apart from the good gore effects, the kills, and most of the stalk-and-chase sequences, that the look truly becomes a major negative. Long story short, it feels like a direct-to-video release or, if it weren't for the gore and nudity, something you'd see on Lifetime or the CW (I'm not just saying that because one of the main actors starred in a CW show), rather than a worldwide theatrical release by a decent-sized studio. In fact, a lot of movies produced by Lionsgate, theatrical or otherwise, have this same kind of generic, washed out, muted look to their visuals and color palette, but what makes this an especially egregious example is how, often during the more kinetic, action-oriented parts and even in more subdued scenes,, the movements of the characters and the frame-rate resemble something you tend to see in low-budget, made for TV and video movies. It's hard to explain but, if you've watched a lot of modern TV action shows or seen how the frame-rate tends to get during the effects sequences in those Sci-Fi Channel original movies, you probably know what I'm getting at. I don't know if that's a result of watching the standard version of a movie that was shot in modern 3-D or what but it makes it feel so cheap. Going back to the actual look, while the muted quality does kind of work with the gray, overcast skies that permeate the film, like in the original, and there are nice bits of lighting here and there, like when you see rays of sunlight filtering through a window, overall, it makes for a very visually unappealing movie. Plus, when you're in an environment where there is a lot of color in the lighting and in the way it's designed, it sometimes looks downright ugly, and it doesn't help the nighttime scenes at all, as they just look generic too.
The look of the film aside, Patrick Lussier does manage to come up with some interesting ways of shooting things, taking nice advantage of POV's and the movie's 3-D in a number of instances. The ones that grab my attention are when, in the opening in the hospital, you get a POV of Burke looking at himself in a mirror that has a heart drawn in blood on it, a moment during the massacre at the mine where a guy gets knocked to the ground and the camera looks straight down at him before cutting to his POV to see Harry Warden standing over him, a similar POV when the killer is standing over Ben Foley and points his pickaxe at him in a "you're next" fashion, the moment when Tom gets shot in the side and the camera goes through the bullet-hole to show that it hit a machine behind him that promptly explodes, and a POV through one of the rescuers' helmet when he finds Tom in the rubble and is promptly axed through it. I also like this effect used during the climax, where Tom, after having been revealed to be the killer, goes through a tunnel, smashing the lights, like in the original, and each time one explodes in sparks, for a fraction of a second, he literally turns into Harry Warden. That is all good stuff, I have to say.
The original My Bloody Valentine is hardly a great movie in and of itself, particularly in the drama it tried to create amongst its main characters, but it still had some things about it that were notable and fairly well-done; this film often takes those special elements and does them in a much less effective manner. For instance, while it didn't go into any great detail about it, the town of Valentine Bluffs still felt like a nice little community and you got a sense of the everyday, working-class life for its citizens, but I feel like you don't get that with Harmony, the setting for the remake. For one, after the opening with the party at the mine, there don't seem to be many people of any real youth around (namely because it's only been ten years since Harry Warden nearly slaughtered all of them), save for Axel and his deputies, Sarah, Megan, Irene, and Tom, and you never see anybody hanging out or just having fun. You know that there's a bar and pool hall but it seems to be nothing more than a place where the town's older folks go to drown their sorrows rather than be with each other and have a good time while doing some drinking. It's probably intentional, to show that, ten years down the line, the memory of Warden's massacre still looms over everybody, but it makes the place just as depressing as its weather conditions. Unlike the original, you do get to see the inside of some of the residences, like Axel and Sarah's house and Ben Foley's place, both of which are nice, luxurious homes (the former are able to afford a housekeeper), but because of all the drama going on, you never see any happiness in there, save for when Noah Palmer is watching TV and talking with his mom at one point. Really, the parts of the area that are most memorable to me are the woods around the town (which look awfully green for February), that old house out there that used to belong to Axel's father, mostly because I always like those types of places anyway, and Selene's motel, the Thunderbird, because it's just such a seedy place, with rooms that are bathed in tacky-looking, pink lights and colors and come with heart-shaped "love tubs."
The setting that suffers the most in this film, though, is the one that should be given the best attention: the mine. We don't see as much of it, for one thing, as it mainly focuses on Tunnel 5, where the original massacre happened and where a lot of the action takes place. In fact, the mine is not quite as significant here as it was in the original, mainly only serving as part of the backstory and being the center of only several major scenes: the opening massacre, the death of the character named Red, and the climax. But, worst of all, it doesn't come close to being as creepy and atmospheric as the one in the original managed to be. All the scenes in there are covered in this ugly, brownish-amber color and light and, what's more, I don't know why they need headlamps because, aside from some dark spots and shadows here and there, it's lit so brightly that the sun might as well be in there. Yes, I've complained about similar places being too dark in some past reviews, but the original managed to light the mine dark enough to where it was kind of foreboding but, at the same time, keep it lit to where you could see what was going on. This movie goes way too far in that direction, as you can virtually see everything clearly and it destroys any feeling of potential atmosphere you might have had otherwise.
As interesting as it is to get a glimpse of who he was before he lost his mind and became a killer, I don't find Harry Warden to be quite as effective as a villainous figure in this film. I like that they kept the same iconic look and didn't really change it at all (dark-colored coveralls, gas mask, headlamp, and a pickaxe as the choice weapon, as well as cutting people's hearts out), and the shots of him either standing in the mine or coming right up to the camera look good and he does come off as menacing, but he seems to lose the mythic status that he had in the original. There's no doubt that his crimes are still remembered all too well by the town of Harmony, and the main story begins with a news report speculating whether or not he may return, but there's no urban legend feeling to him here, no folk tales of him returning to the town every year, looking for victims, and no ballad at the end to make you feel like the town will never be able to move on from him (yeah, the killer ultimately gets away again, but it's not as effective as before). A big part of it is because his apparent return isn't triggered by some event that's forever linked to him, like a Valentine's dance, being held for the first time in years, but by the return of Tom Hanniger (Valentine's Day itself is little more than a backdrop in this film, and they just barely make it clear that the day where everything goes down is on the holiday). That tie to a specific person like Tom is another thing that lessens Warden's impact. If you've seen the original movie, you can probably guess that it's somebody taking on Warden's persona rather than the man himself, but before the reveal at the end, the movie narrows it down to it either being Tom, as Axel suspects, or Axel trying to frame Tom (you could also be forgiven for suspecting either Burke or Ben Foley, as Axel suspects them at one point too and also because the murders appear to mainly involve people who are either associated with the mine or were the ones Warden didn't kill the night of his rampage). In the original, it could have been anyone, which gave Warden a power that a firmly established killer doesn't have, but here, you have a list of suspects, which may not bother others but it hurts it for me. The same goes for Warden having become an alternate, murderous personality of Tom. It's possible that was also what Axel's psychosis in the original was but, again, Warden being so tied to a specific person like that just hurts it for me. The movie does manage to salvage itself a little bit at the very end when, after the credits, you see Warden roaming the mine and coming up to the camera, as it gives off that notion of him still being out there somewhere, but it doesn't completely fix it in my opinion.
What this movie does do well are the kills, which are brutal, crazy, and feature spectacular makeup effects by Gary J. Tunnicliffe and his crew. All of the kills involve a pickaxe in some fashion, usually involving the head, along with some other part of the body, with the more notable ones being the blade going through the back of a head and out the left eye (which makes for a jaw-dropping combination of practical makeup effects with what appears to be some digital effects and the real actor; honestly, I've looked at it up close, in HD, and I'm still not sure how exactly they pulled it off), Frank getting it right through the top of his head, Irene getting it in the stomach, with blood splattering on the wall, Red getting axed right through his arm before it gets shoved back into his forehead, Ben Foley getting his face pushed into the axe as it's jammed into the floor, the blade going through his eye and out the back of his head, and Burke getting the blade up through his neck and out his mouth, with the axe then being pulled out, slashing his face apart. There's also a death during the opening massacre where a woman gets a shovel right into her mouth and impaled to a support beam with it, with Warden then finishing her off by pushing it all the way in until her body completely detaches from the top of her head (unfortunately, that death uses some dodgy CGI, as I'll get into). More horrific than the actual deaths, though, are the grisly aftermaths. In the first few minutes of the movie, you get a very gruesome, up close look at Warden's handiwork at the hospital, with blood splattered on the walls, body parts lying here and there, and the place being absolutely strewn with the the hollowed out bodies of his victims, which include both the hospital staff and the patients. You also see the bodies of the teenagers he killed at the mine, Irene's body split down the middle when it's found in one of the motel's love tubs, Megan's similarly mutilated corpse, with her heart in a candy box in front of her and a valentine message written on the wall behind her in her blood, Ben's body, which was placed in the spot where Warden was buried by the mob after they killed him, and Rosa's badly burned, steaming body being found in the dryer after she's been murdered. So, yes, the gore is most certainly one thing I can say this movie gets right... for the most part, anyway.
I say that because some of the kills involve really bad-looking CGI, such as when the axe gets pulled out of Frank's head and bloody chunks fly up in the air, the aforementioned kill where the woman gets impaled through the mouth by a shovel and her body detaches completely from the top of her head, and when Burke's face gets ripped apart after the pickaxe impales him through the mouth (those chunks come at the camera, so you really can see that they're CG). There are also some bad fire effects, especially the explosion at the end, which blows Tom away, and the weird, cheap-looking, and the kinetic frame-rate that the picture goes through during many of the kills tends to hurt their impact, as it's hard to see the makeup effects and you wonder if what you saw was practical or digital. And, of course, being a 3-D movie, there are a number of instances where things come at the screen, such as the killer's weapon in various instances (when he throws the axe at the car during the opening massacre, when he's trying to get at Irene through the bed-frame she's using as a shield, when he points his pickaxe right at someone's POV in a threatening manner, and the gag at the very end, after the credits), a tree branch when Tom and Sarah crash during the third act, and the newspaper headlines, photos, effects like a pickaxe slashing the words, and the title during the opening. As with any movie of this type, when you watch it in the standard version, the stuff just looks hokey, but even so, I like that this is a movie that was made with the intention of giving the 3-D a fun, gimmicky purpose, as opposed to a bunch of other movies that were converted to it for no reason other than to give a little bit of depth to the background. I'm also sure that the 3-D version is a hoot to watch, not just for the kills but also for the aerial shots of the town and the journey through tunnel during the ending credits, but I've never seen it, even though the DVD comes with four pairs of glasses (which advertise Saw V on them, no less), because I can never get it to work properly and I don't want to potentially mess up my TV by fiddling with the settings. If I could get it to work, I'd probably be praising the movie more, but without it, it comes off as little more than a by-the-numbers slasher movie (you can say the same thing about Friday the 13th Part 3, sure, but that movie has an 80's camp factor that makes it enjoyable, as well as characters I really like).
The movie begins with those 3-D news headlines about the collapse at the Hanniger mines, the six men trapped inside, Tom Hanniger confessing that the collapse was his fault for forgetting to "bleed" the methane lines, the recovery of five bodies from the mine and the discovery of Harry Warden, the realization that Warden murdered the other men to maintain his own oxygen supply, and his being in a deep coma, accompanied by the sound of Tom's father and Sheriff Burke talking about the facts of the situation. It then transitions to the town hospital, where Warden, still in his coma, remembers a tense conversation he had with Tom before heading down to Tunnel 5, asking him if he vented the methane down there, and telling him that just because his father owns the mine doesn't mean he knows anything. We then see him remember the explosion that ripped through the mine and trapped him with everyone else, as he yelled for everyone to get out while putting on his gas mask. Warden's eyes snap open and he glances around the room, trying to figure out where he is, when a nurse walks in and finds his bed empty. Walking away from it and looking around, she doesn't see him sitting on a vacant bed in the darkness behind her, and he stands up and turns towards her, the title then coming up, accompanied by the screams of a woman, possibly that nurse. As the opening credits roll, Burke arrives at the scene and walks inside to the horrific sight of a complete massacre, with a severed torso lying on a bed, the legs lying on the floor beside it, and a dead nurse with a hollowed-out chest in a chair in the corner. He walks into and down the nearby hallway, which is strewn with the bodies of more nurses, and the scene transitions to him pulling back the cover of another woman with her heart cut out, prompting him to say, "Happy fucking Valentine's Day." An officer calls Burke's attention over to a desk by the door that has the woman's heart in an open candy box drawn and he asks who did it. When told it was Warden, Burke says that Warden's in a coma and the officer says, "Guess he woke up." Burke turns and looks at a small mirror on the wall, with a heart drawn on the glass in blood, and asks, "Where the hell is he headed?"
The movie then cuts to the mine, specifically Tunnel No. 5, where a party is going on amongst some of the town's teenagers. Axel Palmer emerges from the tunnel and joins his girlfriend, Irene, asking her if it's time they joined the others underground. Irene says that she promised she'd wait for Sarah and Tom, with Axel wondering if she's broken up with Tom yet and says, "If that pussy has the balls to show up here again, I will personally kick his ass." As if on cue, Sarah and Tom do pull up and walk towards the party, joining Axel and Irene, the latter of whom talks the couple into posing for a snapshot. With that, Axel and Irene head into the tunnel, followed closely by Tom and Sarah, when Sarah senses her boyfriend's trepidation and tells him they don't have to go in if he doesn't want to. As Tom insists there's no problem, they hear Axel tell Irene that he didn't want to take a picture with Tom (bumping his head on the roof of the tunnel, much to Irene's amusement). Tom again insists there's no problem, that he wants to be there, and he and Sarah kiss and say they love each other, when he hands her the flashlight and tells her to go on in, as he left the beer in the car. Sarah then heads deep into the mine, passing by other couples as they walk back outside, and calls for Axel and Irene, getting no answer in this dark section back in there. A dissolve suggests that Sarah has walked in deeper, past the electrical panel behind a small, chain-link gate where Tom was shown in Warden's memory of what happened, and she's startled when she hears what sounds like a bottle clinking on the floor behind her. A man in a gas mask jumps out at her, yelling, and making her jump, and he then laughs, taking off the mask and asking her if she thought he was Warden. He then yells for his friend, Michael, when the blade of a pickaxe suddenly slashes into the back of his head and out his left eye, before being pulled back out, his eyeball being pulled out with it. He collapses to the ground, as Sarah screams, and then, Warden emerges from behind a wall, dressed in his mining outfit and gas mask, wielding the axe, which he uses to smash a light in the ceiling. Sarah runs back down the tunnel, with Warden stomping after her, and she's shocked when she passes by the bodies of three murdered teenagers on the ground. Backing up, she's grabbed from behind by Axel, who muffles her with his hand and pulls her into a spot where he's hiding along with Irene.
Warden wanders into the corridor and walks right by them, noticing them. He gets quite far down the tunnel and almost makes it to the corner up ahead, when back behind the trio's hiding spot, another teen stumbles across the massacre. Seeing Warden, he calls to him and walks towards him, asking if he's his friend, Jason (no, buddy, it's not Jason), while Axel removes his hand from Sarah's mouth and motions for her to remain quiet. Hearing him, Warden stops and the teen approaches him, still thinking he's Jason. When he still gets no response, he decides to just get out, when he turns and sees the hiding group. Axel motions for him to be quiet but it's too late, as Warden turns around and spots all of them, although he focuses on the teen and stomps after him. The teen runs for it but slams into a low-hanging, wooden board in a doorway and falls flat on his back. Warden reaches him, stands over him, and as he screams, stabs him right in the mouth. The three take the opportunity to run for it, though Axel trips and falls. Looking up at Sarah, and looking back to see Warden almost on him, he scrambles to his feet and he hides behind a bunch of junk that's piled on that side of the mine. Warden tosses the stuff out of his way and corners Axel, while Sarah grabs a shovel. Pointing the pickaxe at him, Warden prepares to kill him, when Sarah hits him in the side with the shovel, getting his attention. She swings again but he grabs the shovel this time and, though she tries to get it back, he wrenches it out of her hand and, seeing another girl running towards them, swings and sticks her in the mouth with it, shoving her against a support beam. Axel takes the opportunity to run to Sarah, while Warden jams the shovel all the way into the girl's mouth, and as they run for it, her entire body detaches from the top part of her head. With her out of the way, Warden turns his attention back to the escaping pair, who meet Tom in the adjoining tunnel. Sarah tells him that they're all dead and Axel yells for them to come on, as Tom sees Warden emerge in the other passage. Tom is so frightened by this sight that he starts lagging behind Axel and Sarah when they all bolt for the entrance, Warden hot on their heels. Axel and Sarah make it to the car, where Irene is waiting, and despite Sarah's protests, Axel makes her get in the car. Tom almost reaches the mouth of the tunnel, when Warden snags his coat with the axe and flings him against the wall, causing him to smash against the lights running across it, sending sparks and shattered glass flying. Seeing this, Sarah still tries to help but Axel shoves her into the car, as Warden grabs another pickaxe and, reaching the gate outside the tunnel, throws it boomerang-style, the point smashing through the windshield and stopping within inches of Sarah's face. She and Irene promptly panic and Axel gets into the car, starts it up, and peels down the road in reverse, as both Warden and Tom watch.
With them gone, Warden turns his attention back to the now abandoned Tom, who gets up and runs back inside the mine, ducking into another passageway on the left side of the tunnel. Turning his headlamp off, Warden walks in, searching for him, and, before Tom knows what happened, he turns around and is nearly slashed by the pickaxe. Warden slashes at him several more times, Tom managing to dodge all of them, when he falls to the ground and is cornered. Warden points his axe at him and raises it up to swing, when he's shot in his right side, his blood splattering across Tom's face. Warden falls to his knees in front of Tom, revealing that Burke and his deputy have arrived. Burke tells Warden to stay down but the killer, while staring intently at Tom, gets back on his feet and, ignoring another warning to stay down, stumbles into the depths of the mine, getting shot several more times and stumbling into a support beam. Knocking it down, it causes a section of the roof to collapse, with Tom having to roll to avoid it, and as he and the cops watch, Warden gets back up and runs deeper into the mine, managing to avoid the proceeding shots and disappear around a corner. Burke and his deputy approach the traumatized Tom, the sheriff leaning down and asking him if he's alright. Tom doesn't respond, Burke's words echoing in his confused mind, and the deputy calls for him. The two then head after Warden down the tunnel, as Tom just lays there, his eyes darting back and forth in a frantic manner, with the picture suddenly cutting to black.
We then cut to ten years later, as a news reporter describes Harmony as being the murder capital of America, how it's been nearly a decade since the massacre, and asks if the town has really recovered from what happened. She asks Axel, who's now the county sheriff, about it and he says that they're just trying to move on. He's then asked if history might repeat itself and he gets rather salty about it, saying that he knows how the media would just love it if that happened and proceeds to tell her that they should stop coming back every year, hoping for a horror show to mark what he calls, "The stupidest fucking holiday a greeting card company ever invented." Watching it on a TV in the local diner, Ben Foley tells Axel that it makes them look like an inbred mining community, which he says is exactly what they are. The next bit is spent setting up the dynamics of the characters, such as Axel's marriage to Sarah, his affair with Megan, as they're seen in his dad's old house in the woods, just after they've finished having sex and she gives him a valentine, adding that she's pregnant by him, and Tom Hanniger arriving back in town, as he pulls up on a hill and looks down at the mine, glancing at Tunnel No. 5 at one point. That night, he shows up at Ben's house to sign the papers finalizing the selling of the mine, only to learn that it's been moved to Monday, much to his chagrin. He and Ben have a drink, along with a heated discussion about his selling the mine, and after receiving the box containing his late father's ashes, Tom leaves and drives to the Thunderbird Motel. Driving up and getting out, he's greeted by a little black bulldog, Louis, who's being chased down by his owner: the motel's dwarf owner, Selene. He asks for a room and, in the next cut, he's walking to it, when he hears the unmistakable sound of sex in one that he passes by. Glancing through the window briefly, he walks on to his room, which is right next door. In that room, Irene is really getting it on with Frank, the trucker, at one point straddling him and, looking at her reflection in a mirror, commenting on how hot she looks; meanwhile, in his room, Tom takes out a prescription bottle and takes some of the pills, as the sounds of what happened between him and Harry Warden ten years ago can be heard echoing in his head.
After he and Irene finish, Frank puts his clothes back on and prepares to leave, as he has a two-day haul that he's going to have to make in one in order to be back by Valentine's Day. Irene proceeds to get philosophical about the origins of the holiday as she, still naked, grabs a carton of cigarettes, all of which Frank is not even slightly interested in. She then notices him remove something from underneath a towel by his clothes on the dresser and becomes enraged when she sees that it's a video camera. He says it's for his personal collection and offers to pay her for it. She says that she's not a hooker and, flinging a dollar bill on the bed, says, "You are now," and walks out the door. Irene isn't having it, as she pulls a small handgun out of her little red purse and, deciding not to waste time by putting her clothes on, chases him out into the parking lot, confronting him as he reaches his rig. She threatens to shoot him if he doesn't give her the tape, to which he says, "Irene, two things. One, I don't want you anymore, and two, I know the gun's not loaded." He may be right about it not being loaded but Irene decides to use it anyway, tossing it and hitting him right in the nose with it. Little more than irritated and wincing from the pain, he opens to the door to his rig, which is when Harry Warden stabs him right in the head with a pickaxe. With blood gushing out of the wound, the killer shoves him off the blade using his foot, causing him to drop the video camera, which activates and films Irene running back to the motel, with Warden stomping after her. Irene runs to the main office (in the theatrical trailer, they put some, I assume, digital panties on the wide shot of her running) and initially reaches for the phone, but when she sees he's closing in, she runs into Selene's living area in the back. Closing the door, she frantically looks for a place to hide, initially going for the closet, but deciding instead to crawl under the bed. Warden comes into the room, breathing heavily in his gas mask, and begins searching for her, as Irene tries to keep quiet beneath the bed. Standing around and looking here and there, Warden hears Selene, who's looking for Louis again, out in the office, and hides in the closet.
Selene walks into the room, turning on the light, and continues calling for Louis, calling him a little shit and telling him to stop hiding from her. Spying the closet and seeing that the double-doors are ajar, she heads over there, thinking that's where Louis is hiding, when Warden flings the doors and shines his headlamp in her face. From under the bed, Irene watches as Warden closes in on Selene, swings his pickaxe up through her body and out her head, and slams her up into the overhead light, sending sparks and tiny shards of glass flying everywhere. Irene gasps and shudders at this, and then realizes that she may just given herself away. She turns out to be right, as Warden, leaving Selene stuck in the ceiling, leans down on the floor and spots her under the bed. He grabs her legs and tries to pull her out, but she puts up a struggle and manages to him in the face, knocking him back on the floor. Getting up, he flings the mattress off of the spring bed-frame and puts his foot on it as she looks up at him, attempting to trap her. He then goes and rips his axe out of Selene, as Irene scrambles and gets up against the wall, using the bed-frame as a shield. Undeterred by this, Warden approaches, and when Irene asks him what he wants, he answers her by holding up his pickaxe. She screams at him and he stabs at her through the springs, just barely missing her as she dodges it. She manages to dodge his swings several more time but then, he aims for her middle and scores a hit, splattering a picture on the wall with blood, as the scene transitions to the next morning, when the police have arrived at the motel. After looking at and covering Frank's body outside, Axel finds Irene's in one of the room's heart-shaped bathtub, her front split down the middle, which really gets to him. Deputy Martin asks if it could be a jilted lover but Axel says, "Irene never did the jilting." The two of them move to the office, where Axel looks at the register and is drawn to Thomas Hanniger's name, as he was the last one who checked in. Deputy Ferris then comes in and shows him the video camera they found.
That night, after having briefly met Tom at the grocery store she works at, Sarah arrives home and, after talking with her little boy, Noah, has a moment where she looks at the photo of her and Tom that was taken right before the massacre at the mine. She gets a phone call from Axel at the police station, who called to tell her that Irene was the person found dead at the motel and that she was murdered. Martin calls him to come look at the tapes from the camera and he hangs up. In the next shot, the two of them are watching the recording of Irene running away and the figure in the mining outfit chasing after her on a computer monitor. Martin freezes the image on a moment when the figure turns and briefly looks at the camera, saying that this won't help the rumors that Harry Warden has returned. Axel, however, doesn't believe at all that it's Warden, reminding that there are a lot of miner suits to be found in Harmony and that Warden himself is dead. Ferris then walks in, carrying a Valentine candy box and tells Axel that it's for him. Taking it, and seeing that there's blood seeping out of it, Axel has Ferris get him a latex glove. Putting it on his right hand, he uses it to open up the box, revealing a blood-soaked human heart, which immediately repulses all three of them. Martin then says, "Not Harry, huh?" Meanwhile, at the town bar, Burke is telling a bunch of men sitting around him, one of whom is Ben, the same thing Axel told Martin: Warden is dead and the killer is a copycat. His former deputy, Hinch, who's sitting next to him, though, is not convinced, adding that they never found his body. That's when Tom picks the wrong time to walk in, as the sight of him enrages the man Burke was talking with. Ben tells him to leave Tom alone but Hinch charges at Tom, calling him a cocksucker, and punches him right in the face. Burke and the others restrain Hinch, who yells at Tom that Warden is back because he wants him, and manages to get loose and tries to take another swing at him. Tom manages to dodge it and shove him away, when a big man named Red grabs him and tells him he's in the wrong bar. Tom manages to shove him off but Red then pushes him against the wall and throws a punch, only for Tom to duck, causing him to smash his hand into a mirror. When he recoils, Tom tries to charge him but the two are separated and Burke screams at the top of his lungs for everyone to calm down. Hinch, still being restrained, tells Tom that Warden's going to kill him for good this time and Burke then tells Tom to get out. Tom, however, asks why should he and angrily yells at everyone for blaming him for what happened ten years ago. Burke then forces Tom into the next room, telling him that it all started with him, with Tom turning it around and telling him that he's just as much to blame, since he was the sheriff. Burke tells him that he's not going to save him another time and the two tensely part ways.
Later, at the Palmer household, Sarah comes downstairs very late that night to find Axel watching the tape related with Irene's murder in a draped-off room, though what he's watching is her having sex with Frank. Walking up to where he's sitting and looking at the monitor, Sarah is about to leave when Axel tells her that Tom is back in town to sell the mine and adds that the, "Love of your life might be involved in some very deep shit." Sarah says that Tom isn't the love of her life and Axel shows her the picture, which he found on the dresser. To emphasize his point about Tom possibly being involved, he zooms in on a spot of the video where Tom can be seen outside the window of the motel room. He then asks her to let him know if Tom contacts her. The next day, following a heart-to-heart that he has with Sarah after meeting her as she's about to open up the store, Tom drives out to the mine. After noticing that Martin is there, and watching him drive away in his police car, he walks through the job site and finds the foreman, Riggs. He asks to talk to Ben and is told that he's down in the mines, prompting Tom to decide to go down. Riggs almost stops him, saying it's not safe, but Tom reminds him that he grew up in the mines. Down below, Riggs leads Tom, now in a uniform, to rail-cars and asks who's bleeding the lines of Tunnel 3. Said person turns out to be Red, who Riggs has take Tom down, much to Tom's obvious discomfort. The two of them ride down there in awkward silence, Tom, at one point, asking Red about his hand, which is bandaged; Red just glares at him and keeps looking ahead. Reaching the tunnel, the two of them disembark, Red walking to a phone and calling for Ben. As Red becomes irritated with whoever he's talking to on the phone, angrily telling him to go get Ben, Tom walks over to one of those fenced-in, chain-link sections, remembering the tense encounter he had with Harry Warden before the cave-in. He glances at several gas masks hanging in there before turning around and getting sliced across the forearm when Warden suddenly appears in front of him. He then gets kicked and falls into the space, Warden closing the door and bending the lock around the latch with his pickaxe.
Getting to his feet, Tom tries to open the door but finds that he can't and, after glancing over and seeing that he's near Tunnel 5, he looks and sees Warden staring right at him. The killer then turns on his headlamp and, as Tom watches, marches over to where Red is still yelling at the person on the phone, telling him, "You couldn't find your ass with both hands." Sensing someone behind him, Red turns and faces Warden, surprisingly unfazed by his appearance, and asks, "What do you want?" Warden swings his pickaxe and Red puts his arm up to block it, only for the blade to go right through it. Seeing this, Tom tries to get out of the gate, as Red punches Warden in the face and, pulling the axe out of his arm, hits at him with it. The sounds of the fight can be heard over the receiver, which is hanging down, and Riggs is shown telling the other miners that there's trouble in Tunnel 3, saying that Red's in another fight. They rush that way, as Tom continues trying to get out, watching as Red manages to continue holding Warden off with the axe, kicking him in the gut and then grabbing him and flinging him to the ground. Red lunges the axe's blunt end down at him multiple times, only for him to continuously dodge it, and when Warden grabs his leg, Red tells him that he's dead. He tries to bring the sharp end down on him but Warden braces it with his foot and uses the leverage to shove it back, causing it to impale Red through the forehead. Red falls to his knees and, getting up, Warden removes it, causing his body to fall to the ground. Standing over his now dead victim and rolling the body over on his back, Warden locks eyes with Tom for several moments before hacking viciously into the torso. Tom starts banging on the door, desperate to get out, and Warden is about to remove Red's heart, when he stops and glances at Tom. Tom looks away for a moment and when turns back, Warden is gone. Confused at this, Tom then sees the miners come around the corner of the passage where Red's body lies. Seeing him and realizing what's happened, the men are horrified at the sight, when Tom gets their attention by asking if he's dead and yells at them to get him out. Walking over to where he is, Riggs finds that the latch is jammed and has one of his men help him in bending it back. Opening the door, Riggs grabs Tom and throws him against the fence when he steps out, demanding to know what he did. Tom says that he didn't do anything.
At the hospital, Sarah shows up to pass around Valentine candy boxes for the patients, when she sees Tom getting stitched up in another room. In there, he asks Ben where he was and he says he was in Tunnel 3. When Red comes up, Tom says it was Harry Warden, insisting that he attacked him and he watched him kill Red. The nurse finishes stitching him and tells him he can put his shirt back on, and as he does, Ben asks him to say exactly what he saw. Sarah then walks in and asks what happened, with Ben jokingly telling her that he was attacked by Warden in the mine. Asked what he was doing in the mine, Tom says that he was looking for Ben because he decided not to sell the mine, prompting Axel to walk in and ask why not, asking if he's found something worth staying for, as he looks at Sarah. Following a moment where Axel feels the need to drive home the fact that Sarah is now his wife to Tom, he asks him why, if it was Warden who attacked him, why nobody else saw him. Tom again says that he saw him and Axel, having had enough, decides to put an end to it all, asking Ben, "You wanna tell 'em or should I?" When Ben says he doesn't know what he's talking about, Axel proceeds to tell Tom that both of their fathers, along with Ben, killed Warden in an act of vigilantism and that Burke covered it up, as it wouldn't be seemly for the town fathers to be "on the hook" for that kind of crime. He then adds that, while Warden wasn't buried alive in the mine, as was officially reported, he's definitely dead and buried. To further prove his point, in the next scene, Axel has Ben and Burke lead them out to the spot in the woods where Warden is buried. Burke doesn't think that it will solve the murders but Axel says he just wants to show the townspeople that they aren't the work of someone from beyond the grave so he can get on with his investigation. They come across the old escape hatch from the mine, where Ben tells them is where they found Warden, and just beyond it, Deputy Martin finds the gravesite... or where it used to be, anyway, as it's been dug up and there's no body to be found. Axel demands to know if Warden was really dead when they buried him and both Burke and Ben say that he was, Burke adding that he himself shot him. Ben, again, is adamant that the spot is where they buried him and that there's no way he could be alive. Frustrated, Axel tells the two of them that he wants their statements, then adding that he wants Tom back at the station, as they've got things to discuss. Everyone is led away from the site, though Tom asks Martin what he was doing at the mine earlier. Martin simply says he was doing his job, reminding him, "You're the suspect, not me." Tom then walks away and Martin glances back at the empty grave.
At the station, Tom keeps telling Axel that he didn't kill Red and that somebody wants him to think he did. Axel, though, wants to ask him something else. Sitting down across from him at the table, he asks him why he's really back in town. Tom says that he knows why but Axel says he doesn't, as he doesn't get why he wouldn't show up for his father's funeral but would to sell off his one and only asset. Reminding him that he's not selling the mine and has decided to stay, Axel asks why and Tom, after a long pause, says, "You know she settled for you." This absolutely enrages Axel, who punches Tom to the floor, flips the table over, and grabs him and shoves him against the wall, yelling, "Stay the fuck away from wife!" Martin has to come in and hold Axel back, telling him to calm down. Axel demands Martin lock Tom up but he tells him he can't, as the foreman confirmed that Tom was stuck in the cage when they showed up, meaning someone else was down there. Now even more frustrated, Axel storms out of the room, screaming and punching the wall. Tom and Ben then leave the station together, Tom again telling him that someone else was down there. Ben, now convinced that Warden is back, wonders how and why, with Tom saying that it could be to finish what he started ten years ago. Though Ben advises him to get out of town, Tom says he's not running and that he's going to find him. Ben then says that Warden will probably find him and Tom, before driving off, looks at Ben and says, "Or you." That night, Tom goes back to Tunnel 5 and pries the big doors open with a crowbar. But, as he's about to walk in, his nerves get the better of him and he closes them. Walking away, he takes some more of his medication, when he turns to see that one of the doors has creaked open. He shines his flashlight inside and sees nothing, but then, he looks up at the ridge behind the tunnel and sees another light shining at him from there. Ducking down, he looks away for a split second and, when he looks back up there, he finds that it's gone. Brandishing the crowbar as a weapon, he rushes up the ridge and into the woods, his desperate search taking him to the old house of Axel's father. Hearing some twigs snapping nearby, he continues searching and is soon drawn to the house's front door. He hears another snap in the woods behind him and, shining his light, he walks around to the side of the house. Finding another door there, he walks in through the old kitchen and finds the spot where Axel and Megan had their tryst, a rat eating the chocolates, right next to the Valentine card.
Elsewhere, at his house, Ben is hitting the booze while looking at an article in the town paper about Warden's possible return. Thinking he hears something, and not getting answer when he asks who it is, he takes the shotgun he has at his side and, loading some bullets into it, drunkenly stumbles to the front door. Cocking the gun, he walks out onto the porch and aims it into the dark. When he doesn't see anything, he laughs at himself, commenting that the idea of Harry Warden has him aiming at shadows. He removes the bullets from the gun and walks back into the house, shutting the door behind him. As he heads back towards his den, Warden suddenly charges at him from another room and knocks him to the floor with his pickaxe. Yelling in pain, Ben rolls over onto his back and, seeing the figure in the mining outfit standing over him, pointing at him with the axe, says, "Harry... it is you!" Warden raises his axe and, turning it in his hand so that the blade is pointing at Ben, comes down with it. Ben manages to roll out of the way, the axe sticking into the floor, and he tries to crawl towards his gun on the floor, but when he reaches for it, Warden grabs him from behind and pulls him away. He starts pushing his head towards the other end of the axe pointing it up from the floor, and though Ben tries to brace himself with his hands, he's ultimately no match for Warden's strength. His head positioned right in front of the axe, he says, "Shit," before Warden uses his foot to jam him face down onto it. The blade goes right through Ben's right eye and out the back of his head, blood pouring all over the floor, as Warden watches, seeming to admire his handiwork.
The next day, Axel and everybody else in his department are working their butts off, trying to get a lead, when Sarah walks into the station. Glancing at a bulletin board that's full of grisly crime scene photos, pictures of victims and possible suspects, and map, she then turns around and walks up to Axel when he gets off the phone, telling him that she's brought him some lunch. Axel then asks if she's seen Tom and she says she hasn't seen him yesterday. He tells her that they've lost track of him and that Ben is missing, to which Sarah replies that she doesn't know where Tom is. Axel, growing more frustrated, tells her that Tom is the only one without an alibi and, when she brings up his claim that someone else was in the mine, he angrily slams the desk and yells, "The fuck there was!" Regaining his composure, Axel apologizes, when Martin tells him that they found Ben and motions for him to follow him outside. He tells Sarah that he'll see her later and, in the next scene, he, Martin, and some other officers are at the scene, which is Warden's former burial site in the woods and now contains Ben's hollowed-out body. Telling Martin that he believes it means they're being mocked, Axel orders a cruiser to be posted outside his house and to find Tom and Burke, who are now their two prime suspects.
That night at the grocery store, Megan is mopping the floor when Sarah asks her to give her a hand in restocking the shelves, saying that Axel wants them to get out of the store as soon as possible. After she asks Sarah how she ended up with Axel over Tom, and Sarah says that Axel was the one who was there for her (I'm calling bullshit on that, personally, but, whatever), Megan says that he's not anymore. Before she can elaborate, they hear something up front and Sarah asks her if she locked up, to which she says she did. Sarah then heads up there with Megan, telling whoever it is that the store is closed, and when they don't find anyone there, they hear some more clattering in the back. Sarah says, "Hello?", and, hearing some banging, they look down the nearby cereal aisle but see nothing. The beginning of a camera pan shows Warden standing at the end of an aisle but, when it pans over to show Sarah and Megan pass the corner on the opposite side and pan back, he's gone. Hearing another bang, Sarah tells Megan to wait but she keeps following her, as Warden stalks on the other side of the aisles. Megan says that she can be a coward sometimes and Sarah allows her to stay with her, as they continue creeping around and looking down the aisles, not seeing anything. Reaching the top of the frozen food aisle and still not seeing anyone, Megan tells Sarah that there's nobody there... and then, the lights go out. Now thoroughly frightened, Sarah looks back around the corner of the aisle, when Megan knocks something to the floor and startles her. Grabbing her hand, she tells her that they should just go, only for them to reach the top of the aisle and see Warden standing across from them. Screaming, the two of them run back down the aisle, with Sarah trying to cut through them, only for Warden, who's strafing along the tops of them, to appear in front of and just barely miss her when he swings, smashing the glass of a food container. He then grabs her, slams her against the other door of the container, and is about to stab her, when she grabs a big slice of ham from the broken container and whacks him in the face with it. He gets knocked to his knees and Sarah takes the opportunity to run off, though Warden is soon right behind her. She trips and falls and, as she backs away across the floor, Warden is about to stab her, when Megan comes around the corner and hits him in the head with her mop. She hits him with it a couple of more times, only for him to grab it and hack it in half. Sarah pulls Megan back, as Warden swings and knocks over a display of candy boxes, the two ducking into the stockroom in the back and taking cover in the office at the end of it.
Sarah slams the door, only for Warden to put his pickaxe through it, the blade of which comes through right by her face. He pulls the blade out and Sarah, thinking on her feet, has Megan help her push a file cabinet in front of the door. Warden starts chopping through it and the two of them push the table against the fallen cabinet to further impede him. Sarah tells Megan to go to the window but when she opens it, she finds that there's a grid behind it and it's locked. She tells Megan that the key is in the desk and, as she scrambles to find it and Warden continues chopping through the wood, Sarah grabs the phone and calls the police, telling them where they are and what's going on. Getting the keys, Megan runs back to the window but angling her hand through the small opening in the grid to get at the padlock proves to be really difficult. Megan yells frantically that she can't get it, as Warden chops through the door enough to where he can reach the lock. That's when Megan manages to unlock the window and fling the grid open. Sarah then stops pressing the table against the cabinet and starts helping Megan to slip through the open ajar window, when Warden looks through the large hole and sees what they're doing. Megan gets her legs through and is halfway out, when the two of them see that he's no longer there. Realizing what's going on, Sarah tells Megan to come back through but, unfortunately, Warden grabs her legs outside and, despite Sarah trying to help her, she's pulled through. Crying and panting, Sarah creeps towards the window and looks through, when Warden comes at her, missing her with the pickaxe, and stabs at her again, managing to hook the inside of the front of her shirt. He tries to pull her to the window, as she grabs the handle, and after a short tug-o-war, it flings out, slicing across Sarah's right arm. Warden pulls his weapon through and runs away from the window, as Sarah hits the alarm by the door. As the alarm sounds, she runs to the front of the store and meets up with Axel when he shows up outside the door. Trying to calm her down, he asks her where Warden is and she says he's in the back alley. He tells her to stay behind him and, after calming down, she does what he says, as they walk around the side of the store and, reaching the alley, Axel takes out his flashlight along with his gun. They slowly make their way down the alley and, when they come to a corner, Axel tells her to stay back, as he walks around it. Rounding a dumpster, he's horrified by what he sees and tells Sarah to stay back, as it's something she doesn't want to see. Sarah doesn't listen, though, and walks past Axel to see Megan's mutilated body slumped against the wall, her heart in a box on the ground in front of her, and "BE MINE 4 EVER" and a heart written and drawn in blood on the wall above her. Aghast at this, Sarah buries her face into Axel's shoulder.
In the next scene, Sarah is sitting in the back of the ambulance, getting her arm bandaged up, and when the EMT is finished, Axel tells her that she's going to be taken to the hospital. Sarah asks why Warden would go after Megan and Axel says that it's because everyone's connected to the mine, like it was ten years ago. Knowing that Megan wasn't, Sarah suggests that she was killed to get to Axel, revealing to him that she knows about the affair. With nothing to say to that, Axel motions for the EMT to get going and he climbs into the back of the ambulance. As it drives off, Axel and Martin exchange glances. Meanwhile, Ferris is reading the newspaper in her squad car as she keeps watch on the Palmer house, while inside, Rosa walks out the door and tells Noah, who's watching TV, that she's taking the garbage out. He doesn't hear her at all, and behind him, she walks back in and closes the door, only for it to open again as Warden comes into the house. Rosa is in the laundry room when she senses someone behind her and, at first, she thinks it's Noah. However, when a light shines on her head, she turns around and gasps as Warden swings his pickaxe at her head. He then walks into the living room, only to find that Noah is no longer on the couch. Outside, Ferris is startled when Burke pops up beside her car. She gets out and, brandishing his own gun, he tells her that Warden is in the house. The two of them head to the front door, Burke walking behind Ferris, and when they reach it, Ferris is about to open it when she asks Burke if he wants to take point. He looks like he almost does but then simply says, "I'm retired," and Ferris, with her gun and flashlight out, opens the door and walks inside. She walks into the living room, while Burke, still standing out on the porch, hears something out there. Ferris turns the TV off in the living room, when she hears the sound of the drier start up, as Burke heads to investigate the sound he heard. Inside, the deputy is startled when she sees Noah on the floor, beside the couch, while Burke, aiming his gun, heads towards the end of the house's wraparound porch. Ferris tells Noah to stay down until she comes back and gets him, and then, outside, Burke looks over the edge of the porch to see nothing but a knocked over trashcan, with a headlamp sitting on it. Ferris walks into the laundry room and, seeing the drier rocking violently back and forth, blood splattered on the edge of its door, opens it and screams when Rosa's seared body partially tumbles out of it. She yells for Burke, but when he turns around upon hearing her, Warden ambushes him, putting the pickaxe up through his neck and out his mouth. Moaning and letting out muffled yells of pain, he grabs the handle of the axe and Warden lets him suffer for a bit before grabbing it and, using his foot on his torso as leverage, rips the axe through his face, his body falling over the edge of the porch.
Tom is then shown driving his car into an alleyway and making a phone call to Sarah at the hospital. Telling him where she is, she says that he was right about Harry Warden being back but, when she admits she didn't see the killer's face, Tom says that he doesn't think it is Warden. Asking her if she trusts him, she says that she does and he then says that he has something to show her, which he'll do while taking her back home. In the next cut, Axel arrives at the hospital and runs to the front desk, looking for Sarah; the nurse tells her that she checked out about ten minutes before, having left with, "That nice Tom Hanniger." As if on cue, Martin's voice comes over his portable radio, telling him that he just got in a report he wanted about Tom. We then see that Sarah is riding down the road with Tom, telling him that Warden's mask is now right back in her head. Tom asks Sarah if she knows Axel owns some land up through there and, when she says she knows about his father's old place, asks her if she's been up there lately. Not getting an answer, Tom says that Axel isn't who she thinks he is, adding that he thinks he's the one behind the murders. Sarah's cellphone rings and, ignoring Tom telling her not to answer it, she does. It's Axel, who asks where she is and then asks if she's with Tom. Sarah says yes as quietly as she can, though Tom instantly becomes suspicious, asking who it is. Axel tells Sarah that she needs to get away from Tom, saying that he's been in a mental institution for the past seven years, adding that Rosa and Burke are dead and that he went after Noah. He tells her that Noah's fine, as he's with Ferris, and, admitting that he's been a lousy husband and telling her that she can leave him if she wants, tells her to get out of the car. Sarah, saying, "Thanks for checking in on him, Mom," hangs up, as does Axel, and she tells Tom that she needs to get home because her mother says that Noah isn't feeling well. Tom, however, isn't fooled, and when Sarah demands he take her home, he smacks the steering wheel, saying he needs her, anybody, to understand. Sarah keeps asking Tom to take her home, saying he's scaring her, but Tom isn't doing it, saying, "Axel wants you to think that it's me but it's not, okay? I don't think you know what he's capable of. I'm not gonna let you take that chance, okay? I'm not gonna let you do that again." Seeing no other recourse, Sarah grabs the steering wheel and pulls it her way. The two of them struggle with it, causing the car to swerve back and forth on the road until they hit the curb, the branch of a fallen tree behind it going through the windshield and right between them, out the back window.
Stumbling out of the car, Sarah looks back in and sees that Tom is hurt but still alive. She runs off down the road and into the nearby woods, as he comes to and, unable to get his door open, has to crawl across the seat to the still open passenger door, moaning in pain as he does so. He collapses to the ground and lets out some agonized yells, which Sarah hears as she runs through the woods. Pulling out her cellphone, she calls Axel, who answers by again asking her where she is and she says that she crashed the car and is in the woods by the mine. He tells her to get to his dad's old house and hide, as he's on his way. Hanging up, he turns his car back around and peels off down the road, while Sarah makes it to the house and, knowing where the main key is kept, uses it to get in through the front door. While Axel parks nearby, Sarah pushes a large cabinet in front of the door, when she notices the box of candy and the card that Megan gave to Axel following their last tryst. Looking at what she wrote in the card, Sarah then turns over the lid to the box, only to be shocked when she finds the old picture of her and Tom on the inside of it. Gasping, and remembering Axel's fixation with it, as well as what Tom told her, she runs into the kitchen, frantically searching for something to use as a weapon. Opening up a cupboard, she's further shocked when dozens and dozens of empty candy boxes tumble out... and that's when a door opens behind her and the figure of Harry Warden walks in, holding his pickaxe. Turning around to face the killer, Sarah says Axel's name and Warden responds by swinging at her. Sarah ducks down just in time, as the axe goes through a cabinet door above her. She tries to stop him from pulling it loose but he smacks her away, only for her to grab a frying pan and whack him in the head, slowing him down a bit. She runs into the next room, only to run into the cabinet she blocked the door with (why she doesn't use the door he came through, I don't know) and runs to the window. As he pulls his axe loose, Sarah breaks the glass and the board behind it, throwing the object she uses for this at Warden when he stomps into the room. She tumbles out the window, across the awning above the porch, and falls into the yard, dropping her cellphone. Seeing Warden looking out the window at her, she runs into the woods, though he's quickly hot on her trail.
Coming out of the woods, Sarah makes her way to the mine and tries to take cover inside of a building, only to find that the door is locked. When Warden's shadow falls across it and begins approaching, she runs off to the side and ducks into the building where the miner uniforms are kept. She stops to catch her breath and is startled when one of the uniforms falls down in front of her. Walking the other way, another falls down in front of her, starting a trend that continuously blocks her path and further panics her. Warden then comes at her through the clothes but she manages to run out of the building, as his axe gets snagged in one of the uniforms. Coming across a tunnel leading into the mine, she has no choice but to duck in there, grabbing a map before she does so, with Warden following after her. She takes a passage to the right and runs before stopping to catch her breath. Seeing his shadow pass over the tunnel wall, she ducks behind some junk off to the right of the tunnel and, turning her light off, tries to be quiet. A light-beam illuminates the spot and the sound of footsteps gets closer and closer, prompting Sarah to lunge out and strike when they get close enough. She ends up hitting Axel, knocking him to the ground, and she promptly grabs his gun when he drops it. She points it at him and tells him not to move. He asks what she's doing and she tells him that she found his Valentine hearts up at the house. Initially, he thinks she's talking about the one Megan gave him, but when she says that she means the candy boxes used to house the human hearts, he says that it was Tom. Sarah then mentions the picture of her and Tom and he says that Tom put it there, asking when he would have time to kill a bunch of people when he's been working for the past three days. Tom then shows up, saying that Axel comes and goes as he pleases, being the sheriff. Sarah points the gun at him, telling him to stay back, further ordering both of them to stop moving. Axel tells Sarah to shoot Tom. Tom, in turn, says that Axel needs help, while Axel asks Sarah if she believes him. Tom tells Axel to stop lying to his wife and Axel, again, tells Sarah that Tom was in an institution. Seeing no other choice, Axel tells Sarah to just shoot the both of them, while Tom keeps telling Sarah not to listen to him. The two of them yell at Sarah at once, causing her to become all the more confused and unsure of what to do, when Tom then mentions that the words Megan wrote in her Valentine to Axel are the same ones written in blood above her dead body. Axel is enraged at this, when Sarah then asks Tom how he knows that Megan is dead, as she didn't tell him, and, moreover, how he knows about the words on the wall. Axel glances at Sarah and then at Tom, who is about to tell Sarah to trust him...
...when he looks behind her and asks, "What is that?" Sarah looks but doesn't say anything, although Tom says that it's Warden. He starts telling Sarah that she has to shoot him, but Axel shines his flashlight in that direction but he and Sarah see nothing. Tom starts to grow more and more frantic, especially when Warden does seem to emerge from the tunnel behind Sarah, and yells and raves at her to shoot him. Sarah, again, looks and sees nothing, yelling at Tom that there's no one there. Tom, however, keeps yelling for Sarah to shoot Warden, as he appears to walk right by her and stand in front of Tom, even though Axel and Sarah still don't see him. Warden's image then disappears, revealing that he isn't there and that it is all in Tom's mind, as he keeps silently babbling that he's right there. We then get a montage showing Tom digging up Warden's body, seeing his reflection in a mirror become the killer and then turn back into him, how he was present at the crime scenes, drew the words in blood above Megan's body on the wall, always removed the outfit after a killing, and how, after he killed Red, he locked himself behind the chain-like door. All of this is shown parallel to when he first dug up Warden's mask and weapon and assumed the persona. Cutting back to real time, Tom gasps and Sarah tells him that Warden isn't there. Axel, however, says that he is, asking Tom, "Aren't you, Harry? You living inside Tom?" Tom turns and looks at Axel, saying, "Oh, I'm right here." Sarah points the gun at him as he smiles evilly at Axel, who says that he knew it. He grabs a nearby pickaxe and swings it at Tom, but he ducks, grabs Axel, and slams him against the wall. Axel manages to turn the tables and bend him over a barrel on the ground, trying to get him with the axe, but Tom gets it away from him. Axel punches Tom in the head again and again, only for Tom to hit him with the axe's blunt end. He manages to get the axe back from Tom and tries to skewer him, but Tom rolls out of the way, grab him by the front of his coat, slam him against some tires on the other side of the tunnel, and punch him in the head. He then grabs Axel by the throat and squeezes as hard as he can, but Axel manages to break his grip, get him down, punch him in the stomach, and shove him back. Axel grabs a shovel and Tom, in turn, grabs the pickaxe. The two of them duel with the tools, Axel managing to sweep Tom's feet out from under him and hit him in the back with the shovel. Tom is winded by this but is able to stab Axel in the stomach with the axe, making him drop the shovel. They grapple with each other, Tom turning to face Sarah, and after smiling at her, he lets go of Axel and runs off into the tunnel as she shoots at him, missing each time. Sarah then runs to Axel when he collapses and, getting him to his feet, the two of them make their way back through the tunnel.
Reaching the top of the next tunnel, they stop when they see Tom up ahead, smashing the line of lights along the wall as he approaches them. Axel points and shoots but misses, and Tom resumes smashing them and stomping after them. The two of them duck back into the tunnel and take cover, Axel handing Sarah his gun and telling her that they only have one bullet left. Knowing she can't miss, Sarah walks out and faces Tom as he enters the tunnel, smashing another light. He stops when she says his name and, for a moment, it seems like she got through to him, as his expression softens and he lowers the axe. But then, he frowns again and is about to attack with a yell, when she fires. The bullets passes through his side and shoots the valve off a tank of fuel behind him. Seeing this, Sarah runs to Axel and takes cover with him, as Tom looks behind him and sees the escaping fumes get ignited by a spark from the light he just smashed. It instantly explodes and he's blown back, the movie suddenly cutting to black. When it comes back, a team of rescue workers are seen going through the mine, with one finding Tom half-buried in some rubble. He yells for his comrades to come and, seeing that Tom is alive, tells him to hang on, that help's on the way. He again yells for the others and, assuring Tom that they're going to get him out, is about to ask him his name, when Tom stabs the pickaxe through his mask. Outside, Sarah is led out of Tunnel 5 and meets with Martin, as Axel is laid onto a gurney. Seeing that he's conscious, Martin asks him where Tom is and Axel simply says that he's dead. The deputy motions for the EMTs to load Axel up in the ambulance and they do after he and Sarah say that they love each other. Elsewhere, though, one of the rescue workers slips by the authorities and, when he's in the clear, removes his mask and headlamp to reveal himself to be Tom, who then walks off. The very long ending credits (about six minutes' worth) play over a tracking shot through the depths of the mine, ending on the figure of Harry Warden emerging from a tunnel, walking up to a camera, and swinging his pickaxe right at it as one last 3-D gag.
The notion of this movie taking what the original did and doing it less successfully also applies to the music score, composed by Michael Wandmacher. The original had a score that was already kind of forgettable, save for some little bits here and there, but this music is the very definition of, "In one ear and out the other." It's just generic horror movie and chase music and is so unremarkable that, even while I was hearing it, it wasn't registering at all, so I definitely can't tell you what it sounded like in retrospect, save for a kind of smooth rock piece that you hear at the very end of the movie and into the first part of the credits. And there's no equivalent to the Ballad of Harry Warden here, which was the most memorable musical part of the original movie, so I can't make any comment on the soundtrack either.
No comments:
Post a Comment