Dead Mary

Introduction

A group of late-twenty somethings and one of their much younger girlfriends arrive at a cottage in the back of beyond to drink, reminisce about college days and generally annoy each other with their `issues`. They make the age-old mistake of playing `Truth or Dare` and move swiftly on to another game known as `Dead Mary`. This consists of walking up to a mirror with a candle and saying `Dead Mary` three times..or is that `Candyman`? No, definitely `Dead Mary`. This, and other amazingly unsubtle `coincidental` plot similarities with other films walk up to you and slap you about the face in a vain attempt to convince you that there is some originality in the script.

Video

A very decent picture which has no problem with clarity in the darker scenes, of which there are many.

Audio

Sound too is impressive, with some effective use of the various speakers for unearthly screams and general creaking around.

Features

Extras include a fairly generic `making of`, which includes the main actors trying desperately to instill some depth into their characters, and some quite interesting `filming the film` segments showing how certain shots were done, in what is apparently real-time. It`s a shame that nothing was said about how they created the night-time scenes when it looks as if they were filmed in the day, or perhaps what they show is a rehearsal and I shouldn`t have tried to think too much about it.

There is also a promo video by `Evolved Monkey`, with music sounding like a mix between the Kinks and the Beatles, and is not completely horrible to listen to. I hadn`t come across the name before, but a quick Google found a UK-based site which showed the latest news about the band.apparently they were about to release a song to coincide with a new film called `Dead Mary`, but there is nothing after that….spooky eh?

A single trailer for the film itself completes the extras package.

Conclusion

I`ve often wondered (well, at least once anyway, for the sake of this review) how easy it would be to get the basic outline of a plot for a film such as this, and may well base it around:

A group of friends goes on holiday together - tick!
They have `issues` - tick!
They start playing games that involve someone being nervous about how far things will go - tick!
They accidentally summon up a ghost / demon / devil / face-eating lesbian wart-hog creature - tick!
One or most of the friends becomes infected / posessed - tick!
One or most of the friends die horribly - tick!
The ghost / demon / devil / face-eating lesbian wart-hog creature is finally defeated / destroyed / sent back to live with it`s overbearing mother - tick!
…or is it??!! - tick!

All these plotlets are familiar items in so many horror flicks that you can quite easily chop and change them to your heart`s content and still come up with the sort of formulaic gore-fest, of which `Dead Mary` is a prime example.

This is a shame, as the acting isn`t half bad, and with a better script (at least one which had a modicum of originality), the film may have lifted itself out of the straight-to-DVD bracket. The main issue I have is that there is little or no explanation about what the group have summoned up. There are arguments for leaving a lot to the imagination of course, but with glaring plot-holes such as why this game, which was apparently played by some of the group as children, didn`t have the same effect several times before?...and indeed, why did it all kick off now?

I didn`t much care about who lived and who died, although coming back to life again in a self-healing zombie-ish fashion seems quite cool. The characters are all rather self-interested and shallow. The fact that they all ever got on in the first place was amazing, and probably would have quite happily killed each other after a couple of days together without the help of your friendly neighbourhood ghoul.

Probably one to rent, but only if there is nothing else on offer, and if you fancy a game of `name the film which did that bit so much better`.