Scar 3D

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert has recently lamented the craze of 3D movies, suggesting that the clever-clever viewing format - which essentially renders celluloid action much more immediate, startling and animated - is unrealistic, and not what his faithful old eyes were designed to behold. Oh Roger, in the case of Scar - a horror film that's the first picture shot entirely in the latest Hi Definition 3-D process - it's not what your eyes ever wanted to see, either.

Indeed, so nasty are parts of Scar, the latest entry to the ever-more inexplicable torture film-canon, that you wouldn't want to view it in any dimensions, let alone three of them. With special plastic glasses pinned to their noses, audience members get to candidly see stabbings, neck breaks and bubbling carcasses apparently just a few inches from their noggins. In no sense can this be considered a good thing; the special spectacle case ought really to include a sick bag for the cinema cleaners' sake, so bad is it.

It's questionable whether Scar would have even received a release without its groundbreaking 3-D gimmick. For beyond the high-techery lies a quite wretched video nasty with the most atrocious acting, ridiculous storyline and clunkiest clichés imaginable. Were Scar any cop, it would be a horror parody sitting duck - its gormless idiots shout names in dark rooms, wander off into inky woods and, truly fatal, reside in big, parentless small-town mansions. It's the cinematic equivalent of a turkey nipping Bernard Matthews on the ankle.

Once the local Psycho Nutcase Torturer's identity becomes apparent - roughly five seconds after said PNT first appears - three questions remain. When will the film end, why was it made and how bad will the torture scenes get? The respective answers are not soon enough, impossible to say and really, really bad - the surgery here involves tongue removal, bodily stapling and premature ear loss. The PNT's logic, while goading one sufferer into ordering the execution of their adjacent, is to psychologically test the pain limit of each. In the name of science, mind.

These are quite the last scenes any vaguely sane cineaste would choose to watch in 3-D, and it's unpleasant to imagine the effect such films might have on any mentally impressionable viewers. There is one advantage to the technology, though - take off the much-expense-spared eyewear and you're left with out-of-focus ripples and the outside chance of a quick snooze. Blessed escape! Even if you plough on though, the shock of the 3-D experience wears off quickly as your eyes acclimatise; within half an hour all feels - don't tell Roger I said this - reasonably normal.

There's no getting used to Scar's plot though: calling it harebrained would be an affront to hares. For the record, it involves copycat killings - 16 years after a careless PNT let victim Joan (Angela Bettis) ruin his bloody basement bludgeonry, her return seemingly sparks a copycat PNT's reign of energetic evil. As so often, spoilt and stunningly good looking teenage brats are the favoured fodder - but will the PNT 2.0 get the homecoming queen to his murky cellar before Joan - by a quirk of fate, her auntie - can intervene again?

Despite star names like Kirby Bliss Blanton, Scar was never likely to be an acting masterpiece. But, blessed with Bliss Blanton et al, Scar is, on occasion, highly funny (albeit unintentionally) via improbably rapid resumptions of normality. One such moment comes when, shortly after triumphantly chainsawing the PNT's face into a crimson puddle, Bliss Blanton's bandaged belle is asked how she's doing by wheelchaired sidekick Joan. "Okay, thanks", she cheerfully reveals, before the pair break into gleeful giggles. Such immediacy of recovery feels all the more appropriate in 3-D glory.