Forget everything you thought you knew about killing a man with a pickaxe. “”My Bloody Valentine 3-D,”” the three-dimensional horrorshow of the season, will demonstrate that it’s really much easier than you imagined.

My Bloody Valentine has been marketed simultaneously as a date movie, a self-defecatingly shocking horror flick, and an astonishing exhibition of the rising “”Real-D”” screening technology. Disregarding the hype, “”MBV”” is at its core a retelling of an ’80s horror flop of the same name, which should be a good indicator of the cinematic experience to follow.

The film opens with a flashback to the horrific St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a traumatic day for the rural mining town of Harmony that saw 22 citizens murdered by a deranged miner. Ten years later, the survivors of the massacre are shocked to find that the vicious visage of the V-day slayer has appeared again, looking to finish what he started. Nobody knows why. He’s just back, and he’s just killin’ suckers.

You can patch the rest of the plot together from there out of every horror cliché on file; that just goes with the territory. Taken as a mere movie, “”Valentine”” is typical sophomoric schlock, brimming with attractive teenagers in perilous situations, unwarranted (but not entirely unappreciated) nudity, and so much over-the-top gore that it might as well start giving lectures on global warming.

“”MBV”” should not be taken as a movie, however, but as an experience. The Real-D imagery is astonishing, making the most mundane plots of rural mining country into sweeping vistas that are impossible to escape. You will laugh when entrails explode towards you; you will wince when pickaxes are hurled at you; and, with any luck, you will forget that you’re in a movie theater and that your life is endangered only by a terrible screenplay. With the right companions, “”My Bloody Valentine”” could be the most fun you’ve had at the movies in a while.

My Bloody Valentine 3D
Liongate Productions
Rated R
101 minutes