Let's say that you're trapped in a tight space at night. The lights are out, the phones are dead, and nobody is around except the homicidal maniac who's been trying to murder you with a pickaxe for the last five minutes. Your friend has just been pulled to her death through a dark, open window right in front of you.

Do you:

A) Try to find a weapon?

B) Seriously, try to find a weapon?

C) Walk slowly toward the open window, trembling with fear, so that the killer can pop through it right when you least expect it AAAGGGHHHH!

If you picked 'C', then congratulations, you are squarely in the land of slasher-movie logic, where characters typically do things that defy reason in the interests of making sure that something really scary happens. If you said something like, "I'll pick 'C', but only if it's in 3-D so the pickaxe swoops right into my face and makes me toss my popcorn up into the air," then you get extra bonus points for being in the guilty pleasure realm of Patrick Lussier's exceptionally entertaining old-school remake of 1981's "My Bloody Valentine".

Squarely putting its stakes down in the zone of "switch your brain off and just go with it, it'll be fun", "Valentine 3-D" is just smart enough to know how to be just dumb enough to be a terrific time at the movies. The storyline is classic early 80s-style slice and dice: ten years ago, an industrial accident led to a gasmask-wearing miner going on a berzerk killing spree, before apparently being shot and killed (the body, naturally, is never found). In the present, the survivors of the gruesome massacre are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives, but come Valentine's Day, someone wearing a gasmask and wielding a wicked pickaxe starts carving a bloody swath through town. Has the murderer come back from the dead? Or is it someone else?

Figuring out who the killer is probably won't tax your brain cells too much, but to its credit, "Valentine" doesn't insult your intelligence by trying to be anything other than what it is. Instead, it plays to its strengths by delivering exactly what it promises: ridiculous amounts of gory, bloody mayhem, served up with slick polish and a modicum of intriguing twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. It helps tremendously that Lussier, director of the criminally underrated campfest "Dracula 2000" and Wes Craven's right-hand man on all three "Scream" movies, keeps the flick fast-paced, inventive, and above all entertaining. Clearly, Lussier understands the 3-D concept, and he consistently makes smart use of the gimmick, turning everything from the pointed tip of an axe to flying body parts into an excuse to duck and cover.

I can't honestly vouch for the entertainment value of the non-3-D version of the flick (the cheesy glasses and pointy objects were an integral part of my experience), but I can say that watching it in 3-D made for one of the most enjoyable afternoons out at the movies I've had in a long time.