Bloody Mary (2006)

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I'd never even heard of "Bloody Mary" till I recently picked up a 4-movie "Horror Collection" DVD that included it along with three other B-Movie wonders for the low, low price of only $5.99. I figured even if only one of the movies on the DVD was any good, then it was worth the money. Well, unfortunately "Bloody Mary" was not very good. It had the potential to be a cool, compact, creepy little ghost story but eventually fell apart due to a blend of bad acting and a confused script that tries to cram in too many unneeded elements into the final act. "Bloody Mary" is more or less a bad blend of bits borrowed from numerous (better) movies, including "Candyman," "The Ring," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and what the hell, even "Heathers!" Our story begins at a State Psychiatric Hospital, where a group of young nursing students dare one of their group to play "the Mirror Game," in which you descend into the dark tunnels beneath the building, go to a dark room with a mirror in it, and summon the legendary "Bloody Mary," (some sort of malevolent witch/spirit), with the repeated chant "I believe in Bloody Mary, I believe in Bloody Mary." The girl obediently goes down there and performs the ritual, but something unseen snatches her away before she can come back out again. Needless to say, the others have to cover it up and pretend nothing ever happened. We will learn later on that this not the first time they've had to do this; a previous participant in "the game" has gone from being a nurse to a patient in the hospital, after suffering a complete mental breakdown.Eventually the missing girl's sister, a true crime writer/reporter, comes to the hospital and starts poking around, much to the "Mean Girls'" chagrin. She eventually gets to the bottom of the urban legend surrounding "Bloody Mary," but not before a few more people end up victimized and killed by the vengeful spirit. Somewhere in the mix we are introduced to a mysterious, Hannibal Lecter type prisoner who's kept chained up in the bowels of the hospital and seems to be "in on" the Bloody Mary business with the nurses, though who he is and how exactly he fits into the story is never really made clear. For that matter, we never learn exactly what the nurses were hoping to gain by messing with "Bloody Mary" in the first place, either. Oh, and as an extra bonus there's a doctor in the hospital who seems nice enough till he reveals his true self late in the movie, but his subplot has no apparent connection to the rest of the story, therefore the "revelation" comes out of nowhere and makes little sense. Seriously, this movie has way too much going on and it definitely could've used a better editor and/or a continuity guy!! On the "pro" side, even though most of the girls in "Bloody Mary" can't act worth a lick, they're all quite attractive and spend quite a bit of time in various states of undress, which quite frankly was about the only thing keeping me interested as the film became more convoluted. There's a few decent dollops of gore and some nice spooky atmosphere in the "tunnel" scenes, but overall the movie suffers from a cheap, shot-on-video look that gives it the feel of a made-for-TV movie."Bloody Mary" is not quite bad enough to be total crap, but not quite good enough to be a passable horror entry either. Worth a look if it turns up on late night TV as long as you keep your expectations low.

My expectations were understandably low upon slipping Bloody Mary into my DVD player. I knew the acting would be terrible, I knew the story wouldn't be anything groundbreaking, and I knew the effects would look even more low-budget than they probably were. I knew to expect the worst, and that is exactly what I found in this brutal train wreck of a film.Bloody Mary is about a group of psychiatric hospital nurses who spend their nights going into a tunnel below the hospital, stripping completely naked, and chanting "I believe in Bloody Mary" to an old mirror. One of the young women goes missing, and her big sister arrives to investigate her disappearance. Around this point I began asking myself, "Does this movie actually have anything to do with Mary Tudor?" No, of course not! Turns out Bloody Mary was really a psychiatric patient who became so obsessed with her reflection that she killed a nurse, escaped into the tunnels under the hospital, and stared at herself in a mirror until she starved to death. Who knew? It was also at this point that I was tricked into believing that this movie was actually doing something right. Instead of explaining in the entire plot in a bought of exposition diarrhea, the important details are gradually revealed as the main character discovers them throughout her investigation. There's just one problem with this: over half of the plot is left unexplained! By the time the credits started to roll, I was left with more questions than answers.What is Bloody Mary's motivation for killing people and how is it that she's able to emerge from the mirror to strike? What exactly did the nurses hope to accomplish by summoning her? Who on Earth were those characters that movie introduced and dropped with no rhyme or reason? Bloody Mary fails on all levels. The acting and cinematography were painful to watch, subplots lasted about ten seconds apiece before vanishing, story and dialogue alike were confusing and awkward, and overall...it was just boring. There was nothing engaging or interesting. There was a lot of pointless nudity...was that supposed to be entertaining? There was some blood that looked like water with food coloring thrown in at the last second...was that supposed to be scary? I suppose, as with any other questions I had about this movie, these will simply have to go unanswered.This isn't one of those movies where "it's so bad, it's good!" It's just plain awful. I couldn't find anything enjoyable or redeeming about Bloody Mary, and believe me, I was looking! There are many "bad" movies that I love; my favorite film is a piece of cinematic dreck. My point being, if anyone was willing to be sympathetic toward this movie, it was me. And I paid for this with ninety-three minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

After diving through the $3.00 DVD bin at Biglots, I discovered this 'gem'. I have to say having lived through the gore-fest of the 80s and loving every moment of it... this movie is flat. The female lead can't act, the 'cop' can't act. The head of the institution can't act... see the trend? Extreme lighting and scary music are not enough to pull a viewer into caring about what happens to the characters. The movie "FROGS" had better character actors.Back in the day, you'd see the fingers go in and pull the eyes out, now it's just a camera cut, some blood splatter, and then a cut back post fact. The horror has left the decade.Like most of the direct to video horror movies these days. It's just an excuse to get girls topless. No style, no class, no budget.

I had to give this film a 2. I could not see it earning any higher a score. Let's start with the story, totally contrived and predictable The acting, fair and that's being generous. The "leader" or the little group, very stereotypical of an "evildoer" or evil person in this type of movie.The characters, another film with shallow predictable characters. Some of this can be attributed to the actors themselves, part to the writers and part to the story itself. Even in the asylum, how stereotypical, the guy dragging a leg with his arm curled, the guy in the catatonic state, the nutty girl that screams and finally the bad guy, not Mary herself, or the leader, but the head nut case. Don't even bother renting this unless you want a schlock flick. Not scary, not gory, just plenty of schlock.