Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Nurse 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

Deadside manner.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 8, 2014

Nurse 3D certainly isn’t a terminal case, but it ends up being on life support quite a bit of the time. Writer- director Doug Aarniokoski starts his film with a brief textual prelude giving the viewer supposed facts about the high number of serial killers who ply their trade (or at least their hobby) as medical professionals. That enticing setup then segues into a scene narrated by Abby (Paz de la Huerta), a nurse by day who moonlights as a vigilante at night, preying on cheating married men. The opening scene of Nurse 3D is actually fun and frightening in equal measure, as a scantily clad and unabashedly seductive Abby makes her way through a cacophonous nightclub, easily reeling in a smarmy guy who pockets his wedding ring before siding up to the voluptuous woman. Abby and the guy exit to the roof of the building where she “distracts” him (on her knees, if you need a hint) while she quickly slices through his femoral artery, ultimately pushing him over the edge, where of course, in true 3D horror film fashion, he ends up getting impaled on an ornate spiked metal fence several stories below. So far, so good—at least insofar as these types of movies go. But then instead of following through on this at least marginally promising premise, Aarniokoski takes a kind of weird left turn into Single White Female territory by having Abby become preternaturally obsessed with one of the new nurses at All Saints Hospital, a comely young blonde named Danni (Katrina Bowden). Abby has been mentoring Danni as she worked as a kind of novice at the facility, but now she’s a full fledged nurse (given her nursing pin by an uncredited Kathleen Turner, believe it or not, an actress who could have cut one mean swath in a role like Abby back in the day), even if she’s not particularly well equipped emotionally to handle the stress of the job. Abby’s interest in Danni isn’t purely professional in any case, as quickly becomes apparent, and in fact the central part of Nurse 3D really doesn’t have much to do with the removal of cheating husbands, instead focusing on Abby’s increasingly desperate attempts to get Danni to accept her as—well, what, really? A girlfriend? A friend with benefits? An occasional lesbian fling? A bi-curious stopgap when Danni’s paramedic boyfriend Steve (Corbin Bleu) isn’t available? It’s not exactly clear, which is one reason Nurse 3D never quite erupts into the adrenaline drenched horror outing it might have with tighter and more focused scripting.

Danni partakes in a little nookie with Steve in an abandoned room in the hospital which culminates in Steve asking her to move in with him. They begin arguing about that since Danni isn’t ready for a commitment, an argument which is interrupted by the intrusion of Nurse Regina (Reno 911’s Niecy Nash—the cast in this film is nothing if not eclectic), who begins riffing on Steve’s biracial beauty. Meanwhile, Danni does not react with professional alacrity when an accident victim is wheeled into the emergency room, resulting in a tongue lashing by the smarmy Dr. Morris (Judd Nelson—like I said, eclectic). Abby is there to help shore up Danni’s faltering emotions, and in the first of several patently gratuitous nude scenes, both Danni and Abby shower in an improbably luxe women’s locker room in the hospital, preparing to go out drinking afterwards. (It's kind of humorous to note that Bowden must have had some sort of nudity clause in her contract, for she wears a thong in both of her shower scenes. De la Huerta evidently had no such qualms, and at various points in the film appears both topless and bottomless.)

In one of the film’s not very well established plot points, Danni runs into her slimy stepfather, a renowned psychiatrist named Martin Price (Martin Donovan, Weeds), who is caught cheating on Danni’s mother. That perks up Abby’s interest, of course, and would seem to be tying the two plot threads together, but once again Aarniokoski defies expectations—for better or worse—by having Abby dispatch Martin without much fuss or bother. This lack of suspense repeatedly makes Nurse 3D more anecdotal than it probably should be, something that’s only exacerbated by the fact that the anecdotes themselves are rather rote and quickly dealt with.

Nurse 3D then gets bogged down in a bunch of genre conventions, where the spurned Abby tries to frame Danni for her own stepfather’s murder. That brings in the involvement of a typically misdirected cop (played by Boris Kodjoe) who is seduced both literally and figuratively by Abby, convinced that it’s Danni who’s stalking Abby rather than vice versa. Danni ends up figuring out Abby’s fairly predictable back story courtesy of a new human relations manager who shows up at All Saints and drops an important clue, another development that plays out in a trite fashion. Things at least perk up (for horror fans, anyway) with an almost Grand Guignol-esque exercise in hyperbolism in the film’s closing moments when Abby lets loose a flurry of violence inside the hospital.

The performances here are all over the map. Nash seems to have been ported in from an undercover assignment on Reno 911, while Bowden plays things resolutely earnestly. I’m frankly not quite sure what to make of de la Huerta. Aside from her kind of bizarre resemblance to a Latina version of Candy Clark, she ambles through this film like she’s on copious amounts of Thorazine, or perhaps like she underwent an operation of her own (namely, a lobotomy), spewing out her lines in a kind of zombiefied state that seems to have little recognition of what those lines mean. She’s certainly attractive (and you get to see all of her), but she’s simply not smart enough seeming to ever muster up much credibility as a threatening villainess. Nurse 3D really should have been a lot more fun (as well as a lot funnier). It's a middling effort with a couple of decent gore scenes for those who like such things, but even the 3D can't provide much depth to this largely flat enterprise.

Nurse 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nurse 3D is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with both MVC (3D) and AVC (2D) encoded 1080p transfers in 2.41:1. Aarniokoski and cinematographer Boris Mojsovski actually defy horror tropes by casting the bulk of this film in brightly lit (even fluorescently lit) environments, which helps to offer a sharp and clear picture. Contrast is generally quite good, though some scenes (notably Danni's nighttime assignation with Steve) are bathed in quite a bit of murkiness, leaving shadow detail levels on the low side. Close-ups reveal excellent fine detail and colors are vivid and accurate looking.

The 3D presentation is almost as good as the general video appearance. Aarniokoski discusses some of the added CGI elements that he hoped would up the dimensionality of the piece (like light fixtures in the opening sequence), but really the best depth is accomplished with more mundane approaches like simply placing a piece of furniture or a character in the foreground while the main action plays further back in the frame, creating an instant sense of depth. Perhaps surprisingly, some of the hokier effects, including a couple during a scene where Abby decides to give Dr. Morris a taste of his own medicine (sorry), which has the murderous nurse aiming various surgical implements directly at the viewer, are okay looking but not overly dimensional.

Nurse 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Nurse 3D's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is enjoyably boisterous courtesy of a couple of throbbing nightclub scenes as well as the big splatter-fest that culminates the film, but it's also curiously restrained at other times, notably the omnipresent narration and quieter dialogue scenes. Fidelity is excellent, however, and some of the crowded hospital scenes have excellent directionality with regard to ambient environmental effects.

Nurse 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bad Medicine: The Making of Nurse (1080p; 8:08) is an agreeable enough EPK with interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips from the film. Niecy Nash is pretty funny in this.


• Audio Commentary features writer-director Doug Aarniokoski is quite engaging here, detailing the rigors of his first 3D shoot. He splits the time fairly evenly between technical matters and more anecdotal information. (Will it surprise anyone to hear that Paz de la Huerta evidently forgot to put her gloves back on after visiting the rest room during one set up, necessitating an entire evening's worth of reshoots?).


• Video Diaries (1080p; 5:47) contains fairly useless tagalongs with Bowden and Bleu.

Nurse 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nurse 3D isn't as bad as it could have been, but similarly it's not nearly as good as it should have been. This should have been a bloody black comedy, but with de la Huerta's weirdly dissociative performance, it becomes the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry. There are a number of fun touches here, though, and the supporting cast is colorful. Aarniokoski is a director to keep an eye on, for he certainly has an assured visual sense, but he needs a stronger writer (and, remember, he co-wrote Nurse 3D) to hang all that technique on. Genre enthusiasts and 3D buffs will probably find enough here to enjoy, and the technical presentation is excellent.