Urban Legends: Bloody Mary

I saw URBAN LEGENDS: BLOODY MARY last weekend and I thought that it was a entertaining movie that was even better than other straight-to-video horror movies that always turns out to be very but very awful, but this one shows that you can do a good straight-to-video horror movie if you have a good script.

The deaths were awesome and very scarier, i think the best was the Spiders scene.

And the acting was very good.

Kate Mara was a very good lead, I think she has future and more to show.

Overall, I give this 7,5 out of 10 stars.

The "Urban Legend" franchise returned with this straight-to-DVD installment but this time a supernatural spin was added to the series. While it's a decent idea, unfortunately, it didn't work. The main problem was that you never really got the sense that anything supernatural was going on to begin with. In the "Final Destination" films all the deaths were made to look like freak accidents yet you always knew that they weren't just accidents but that something supernatural was at work. It was the complete opposite in this movie. Despite constant reminders that the ghoulish Mary might be lurking about, most of the deaths still seemed like they really were just freak accidents. As if they weren't the result of something eerie but instead the result of extreme stupidity on the characters' part. It didn't help that the majority of the victims were thin stereotypes (dumb jocks and their air-headed girlfriends). Basically, I never felt like Mary was much of a threat.

Storywise, the film left a lot to be desired. For one, there's no relation between this film and the previous two UL films which was disappointing. Even "Final Cut", which had a new story and a new set of characters was still somehow connected to the original "Urban Legend". Also, the script for "Bloody Mary" felt disjointed at times. It's like they were more concerned with getting from Point A to Point B without much consideration to story. For example, a subplot early in the film where the jocks suspect a character of seeking revenge because of a prank just went nowhere and was forgotten after a few minutes. And then there are a bunch of seemingly important characters introduced during the first half of the film only to be forgotten during the second half, as if they never existed. On the acting side, the cast was barely okay. In the grand tradition of B-films, the heroine (Kate Mara) was the only one who showed any signs of promise with the rest of the cast displaying community theater performances. Especially Ed Marinaro who apparently never learned to act after his buff body and good looks faded away.

This movie was an obvious attempt at trying to revive the UL films by adding elements from such thrillers as "The Ring" and "The Grudge". But taking ideas from other films shouldn't come as a surprise for this series since the first two "Urban Legends" were ripoffs of "Scream" and "Scream 2" (what's next? An Urban Legend set in a hostel?). That wasn't entirely a bad thing since out of the dozens of "Scream" ripoffs, the UL films were the only good ones. They were fun and they added their own unique spin. Sadly, the same can't be said for "Bloody Mary" which does nothing fun or unique with the premise. And it certainly never comes close to being eerie or creepy like "The Ring" or "The Grudge" for the reasons mentioned above, the supernatural element wasn't established well enough and Mary is nowhere near as scary or even interesting as Samara or Kayako. She comes across more like a angry Goth girl with bad make-up. The film could have worked if they had a director who could have made Mary's scenes more chilling and atmospheric but instead they're just dull, uneventful and predictable.

One of the film's biggest offenses is that it completely betrays the title. The film has nothing to do with the actual legend of Bloody Mary or what she supposedly does when summoned. Rather than base the film on true Bloody Mary legends they come up with a lame story of their own involving a prom from 1969.

I didn't hate the movie like I thought I would but I also didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. I will say that "Bloody Mary" is at least worth checking out for the spider scene alone. That was the film's one true highlight.

(2005) Urban Legends: Bloody Mary HORROR

Straight-to-rental third movie of the series that has nothing to do with the other two, which looks like nothing but a poor carbon copy of "Ju-On" or "The Grudge". Story starts with the year of 1969 involving three teenage jocks using the date rape drug on three different girls upon going to a prom dance, except that one of the girls, who happens to be Mary didn't take her drink and upon running away with one of them chasing her to bring her back. He eventually catches up with her and accidentally kills her by punching her with his fist on the head onto a hard table before landing to the ground and decides to dispose her body to a trunk so no one wouldn't even know about it. Jump to many years later, showcasing three teenage girls who accidentally wake up the Nancy ghoulish spirit, with some of those same students turning 30 years older and right off the get-go viewers should be able to find out the culprit who tried to conceal what this film calls a urban legend whose trying to prevent her son-in-law and daughter from exposing! Stupid, lame, clice and for the narrow minded, like the "Mary" girl never had any parents or friends. Police are never involved and are absent nor were Mary's parents.

This film has the POTENTIAL to be as great as the other two. It has pretty good characters, a pretty intriguing mystery, with this whole "past coming back to haunt" thread. BUT the ending is devastatingly lame.

I watched the "making of", and the director seems a few bricks short of a wall. She explains the film, and why it is such a brilliant, clever film. But the gaping hole in her logic is that she is WRONG. It is NOT clever, it is utterly ludicrous.

And there are too many stereotypes, from the jocks to the girls having pillow fights in their underwear, to the "Foxy Brown" / "power to the people" character.

Samantha Owens (Mara) is the editor of the high school newspaper and was blacklisted with her two friends, Gina (Haley McCormick) and Mindy (Olesya Rulin), by the football players after an article about them, so they do not go to a high school party. Samantha tells to the other girls an urban legend told by her mother: in 1969, in Salt Lake City, the two girlfriends of Mary Banner (Lilith Fields) are drugged by their dates in a prom, but she understands the situation and runs from her date, who kills her and hide her body in a trunk in the basement of the school. Like the Candyman, Samantha speaks "Bloody Mary" three times, evoking the evil spirit of Mary. Along the night, the three girls are drugged and kidnapped in a prank of the players, but Samantha has visions and premonitions about Mary. When her school mates are killed, Mary visits Grace Taylor (Tina Lifford), one of the girls abused in 1969, and finds that the victims are the descendants of the trio that killed Mary and harmed her friends, and that Mary spirit is seeking for revenge.

I bought this DVD full of good expectations, based on the name of director Mary Lambert, since "Pet Sematary" is one of my favorite horror movies ever. Unfortunately, the predictable and forgettable story of "Urban Legends: Bloody Mary" is very bad and full of clichés. Mary crawling from the bottom of the bed is a rip-off of Samara in "The Ring". It seems that there is only some care with the gore deaths, but the same does not happen with the characters. For example, Samantha's mother Pam (Nancy Everhard), who told the story of Mary to Samantha, vanishes and Samantha and David never ask for additional information about Mary to her. David is stupidly killed and Samantha in the end of the story with Grace does not miss or even mention him. The death of Heather Thompson, attacked by spiders, is the best moment of this disappointing flick. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Lendas Urbanas 3: A Vingança de Mary" ("Urban Legends 3: Mary's Revenge")