DVD Review: Dead Mary

DVD Reviews

By Patrick Luce Feb 21, 2007, 16:06 GMT

Dead Mary is simply a mess. The film’s title has ties to the “Bloody Mary” urban legend, but the plot seems to play more like Evil Dead meets The Thing. While that might sound like a cool movie, Dead Mary fails to live up to the potential.

Dead Mary was directed by Robert Wilson (Warriors of Terra) and written by Peter Sheldrick and Christopher Warre Smets (one of the writers behind the equally bad Living Death). The film stars Dominique Swain (Alpha Dog), Marie-Josée Colburn (Timeline), Jefferson Brown, Maggie Castle (The Woods), Steve McCarthy, and Reagan Pasternak (Breach).

The friends before they start killing each other

The movie’s plot is a “grab bag” of other horror films and features a group of friends getting together at a cabin in the woods for a weekend of fun, drinking and smoking pot (or at least that is what they do in the opening minutes of the movie). When night time rolls around, they decide to play a round of “Dead Mary” – which they explain is the real version of “Blood Mary.”There really isn’t too much of a difference to the “Mary” stories except for the fact Dead Mary is supposed to show up and rip your throat out after you say her name while looking in the mirror (kind of like Candyman, but without the hook).Once the gang plays “Dead Mary,” that part of the plot is pretty much dropped, and the movie changes into some kind of zombie creature film meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One of the friends gets killed in the woods, and one of them might be the killer. After the friends investigate the murder, they find out that he is not quite dead. Instead, he is a half-eaten animated corpse that is really mad. A quick beheading with a shovel by his ex-girlfriend (Swain) gets him out of the picture, but the killer is still hiding amongst the group. Worse, the killer isn’t human anymore at all. Instead, it is some kind of monster, but they never really explain this or if they did it was lost on me.The movie then shifts into overdrive with the friends quickly turning on each other, killing each other in various gruesome ways, and playing “guess the monster.” The film never really has anything much to offer – including scares or even thrills of any kind.

The gore might please some fans, but it doesn't save the movie

Since the characters are kind of cliché and not very well developed, you don’t really care that they are getting chopped up, set on fire, or eaten. The plot is such a combination of better films that you just start to regret that you aren’t watching one of them. Throughout the movie, I was tempted to just shut it off and watch Evil Dead or John Carpenter’s The Thing.All of the actors do a halfway decent job in the film (though Swain is a bit wasted in her role), but don’t really have anything to work with in terms of character. So much of the film is cliché that the actors are pretty much interchangeable and forgettable. The plot is supposed to make you question if you could “hack up” your best friend, but these characters don’t matter so the audience doesn’t care. The movie could be described as a throwback to the glory gory days of the 80s slasher films, but even that description doesn’t lift it from its many faults. It does feature some good make-up work from artist Daniel Lee (who lent his talents to Silent Hill and Dawn of the Dead), but that may not be enough to redeem Dead Mary in the eyes of diehard horror fans.The DVD comes with a couple of special features – “The Making of Dead Mary” and a music video – but they are nothing special.Dead Mary is a film that disappoints. I was interested in watching the movie when it arrived on my desk, but quickly lost interest it. If there is nothing else available and you are craving a horror fix, Dead Mary might be worth watching. However, I would still have to recommend one of the many films that it tries to imitate.

All you need to kill a friend is some fire and a sharp shovel

Dead Mary is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.

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Enoodle123Dec 27th, 2007 - 05:18:56

I watched this tonight on Movie Channel on demand, and while I recognize it's obvious influences, found it quite enjoyable. The characters reminded me quite strongly of real people I know, and the movie builds a lot of tension from the 'boring dialogue scenes that no one online seemed to enjoy. I thought they were well written and fairly amusing (although admittedly a little slow). Really, there were a few parts of the film, particularly when the friends are actually playing the 'dead mary' game, that had me a little freaked out. I liked the fact that the film had no jolt scares, and when I kept expecting them, and they kept not coming, it was just slowly twisting me around. After the big reveal, I enjoyed trying to figure out who was good and who was bad. Yes, there was not a lot of explanation as to what was going on. But, really, in real life, when the shit comes down on your head, do you think that anyone is going to sit there and explain it to you?

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