[The Legend Of Bloody Mary]
Plot:Ryan (PAUL PREISS) has been plagued with nightmares since the night his sister Amy (RACHEL TAYLOR)went missing 8 years earlier after playing the game "Bloody Mary." Amy had stumbled onto a website on the Internet (www.marked4mary.com) about a witch called Bloody Mary (CAITLAN WACHS) and a game to summon her evil spirit. Now a senior in college, Ryan is reaching a mental breaking point from the years of stress and guilt from his sisters disappearance.

His girlfriend Rachel (IRINA COSTA) frustrated herself at Ryan's emotional distance and self pity, calls for help to a former professor of Ryan's, Father O'Neal (ROBERT J. LOCKE). Father O'Neal is both a priest and a archaeologist who decides to help Ryan end his tormenting grief by using his detective skills and wit to figure out what exactly happened to Ryan's sister, and uncover the truth to the Legend of Bloody Mary.

Cast:Paul Preiss, Robert J. Locke, Caitlin Wachs, Nicole Aiken, Brittany Miller.

My Thoughts:Bloody-boring.

Review:"The Legend Of Bloody Mary" is another horror *slash* slasher film which plays on the urban folktale legend of Bloody Mary, a character who appears and kills you when you say her name 5 times while staring into a mirror. Like many slashers before it, it fails on almost every level of making the legend inteesting, unique, or refreshing at all. In fact...the film is just what you would expect, and that's very disappointing. What you'd "expect", and what you'd "hope for"...are two different things.

The pic follows a young man named Ryan, who's been plagued by horrific night-terrors ever since his kid sister disappeared years ago while playing an online version of the bloody mary game (yes in 2008 there's an online version). Now he has to find out why he's receiving these nightmares, and how to stop them before Mary claims him as her next victim. For starters, Mary in this movie is a sad pathetic villain. Mary in "Dead Mary", another indie horror film which implements the urban legend into it's storyline...was a far superior antagonist.

But this version of Mary is just a sad, embarassment. Her voice is cheesily done, and the only reason it's slightly effective in those moments where she demonically harasses someone who cannot see her...is because it comes out of nowhere. The element of surprise, NOT...the element of fear or genuine terror. Second she hardly makes an appearance in the film, except in a few scenes where she's so poorly lit that you can't see her very well. The way she gets you is she pulls you through a mirror, and you end up in her world.

Her world being a sunny prarie-like field...go figure. Mary is the angry spirit of a woman who was killed by christianists back in the day, puritans, christianists, whatever the kids call them these days. Either way they did some serious damage to her before finishing her off, all because they suspected her of being a witch. Well now Mary is back, and she's not very happy about that. Nor is she happy about stupid teenagers who visit "www.marked4mary.com" and decided to have a little fun calling up her spirit. But the writers make Mary far too complacent and boring to be a fearsome villain.

She spends more time calling peoples names and playing hide-and-seek rather than actually killing anyone. Ryan, the guy who is having the nightmares...really needs to solve this mystery because he's not getting laid anytime soon now that his girlfriend is fed up with his creepy ass, and his creepy ass dreams. So he employs the help of a priest/archeologist named Father O'Neal, who for some reason dresses like he lives in the outback of Australia, and not a major american city..."shrugs"...different strokes for different folks I guess.

By this time though, you're probably bored as hell with this movie...I know I sure was. It's one thing to have a low budget and not be able to have as high of a body count or spill as much blood as you want, but this film doesn't even try. It tries to be a psychological horror film, but between the generic cheap scares, and the poor script...it can never quite make the grade as a satisfactory psycho-horror pic. The piss poor acting doesn't help either, although the story does contain one intriguing plot arc...where the plot shifts back and forth from past events with Ryan's sister post-her-disappearance...to current events with Ryan trying to rid himself of the nightmares with the help of O'Neal.

Father O'Neal is a nice guy in this film, which is probably the only character positive about him. It's not much, but he gives you someone to root for that they don't die. Too bad you can't say the same for the other characters involved. This film never delivers any real scares, or good, bloody, gory deaths, or any unique demises for that matter. To top it all off, the typical and predictable "BOO!" ending is also tossed in for good measure. It's a whole lot of hot air, and unless you're 10 years old, you probably won't be scared in the least. You should visit "www.marked4mary.com" online if you're looking for a few kicks...it's probably a whole-helluva-lot scarier than this movie was.

Positives:A slightly likeable way of telling the story with past and present events.

Negatives:Lame antagonist, boring script, hardly any blood and gore, cheap scares, and bad acting by most of the cast.

Overall:Half a star out of 4.





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