From my favorite movies..

A Disappointing Continuation

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Very strange movie, it seems almost an horror (or funny?) version of "Waiting for Godot", the Beckett's play. So in the first part of the movie there's nothing of interest, while they are waiting for Ted there are only stupid discussions about couple relationships: your boy makes love with x, your girl with y, I makes love with everybody.. All together are friends and lovers but in the wrong beds.Then the game begins, and the game is "Bloody Mary" or, for copyright and other reasons, "Dead Mary". But don't expect something special, a candle that shuts off, a night walking alone in the forest... the first dead.. who is the killer? It doesn't seem so important, no character seems particularly enjoyable or disliked. Uh, the dead boy is a zombie? It seems funny... There is also a mysterious shed in the scene, you hope, in vain, for something interesting... while everybody are waiting for Ted..Other murders, you could bet on the next, other accusations of betrayal, it seems the only interest of the group. Who is possessed? One, two, everyone? Some clue could help and not.. in the meantime everybody are waiting for Ted... The cars don't work, no people in the surroundings, somebody start to searching for help but you'll find them always on the same place. And everybody are waiting for Ted...The end... have you understood anything? Probably not. The possible hypothesis are always the same and every clue turns out useless. You can always meditate waiting for Ted...

7 friends go to a cabin and decide to play a game called ' Dead Mary' which unfortunately for them appears to have some basis in reality. It's a familiar tale but one that is done quite well especially considering this is a straight to video effort. Low budget films often rely on the ability of the actors concerned and whilst we have no Oscar winners here they all do a good job. The fact that you get to know the characters a bit before the mayhem starts is always a plus and this group are quite a pleasant bunch which makes the happenings a bit more tense. This isn't a particularly scary movie though there's a fair bit of gore and a few tense scenes. This is interspersed with a nice bit of humour around who is sleeping with who. This is a good low budget horror and a fun watch as you try to fathom out who if anyone will survive.

Originality is definitely not Dead Mary's strongest suit, the film borrowing heavily from seminal horror classic The Evil Dead, utilising the well-worn urban legend of Bloody Mary (albeit with a slight name tweak) to kick off its supernatural activity, after which it attempts to mimic the atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust from John Carpenter's The Thing. Thankfully, despite its derivative nature, the film still manages to be quite an unsettling experience at times, fledgling director Robert Wilson handling the mounting tension with aplomb and his likable cast giving strong performances.Wilson takes a slow-burn approach to proceedings, introducing his principle characters at leisure, giving each a potted history so as to help define their personalities: Matt (Jefferson Brown) is scared of commitment, and has chosen the weekend to break up (again) with his understandably irritated girlfriend Kim (Dominique Swain); love-rat Dash (Michael Majeski) has a track record of cheating on his doormat of a wife, Amber (Reagan Pasternak); Baker (Steven McCarthy) is in a new relationship with the much younger Lily (Maggie Castle), but has been carrying on a secret affair with one of the other women; Eve (Marie-Josée Colburn), on the other hand, only has relationships with married men. Once these characters have been established, it's on with the spookiness, the friends daring each other to invoke the spirit of legendary witch Dead Mary by saying her name three times in front of a mirror. No prizes for guessing that they are successful, Mary's spirit possessing them one by one, turning them into bloodthirsty killers.Although Dead Mary's premise presents plenty of opportunity for frantic scenes of gore and cheap scares, a measured and rather reserved approach is maintained throughout, Wilson preferring to rely on atmosphere and the suggestion of nastiness to disturb his viewer rather than drenching them in OTT splatter and causing them to have heart attacks. As much as I enjoy a well executed shock and good bloodbath, I have to admit that the director's deliberate style is refreshingly different and surprisingly effective, delivering more than its fair share of decent chills. Where the film does fall down slightly is in the finer details of its story, with some elements definitely requiring further explanation, and in the progression of its characters, who have little problem in accepting the bizarre nature of their situation and are quick to react accordingly. If it was me, I'm not so sure that I would find it as easy to dismember and burn my closest friends.6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

(There are Spoilers) Getting together at Ted's Cabin in th woods this group of friends who haven't seen each other in years start to talk about the problems that their having in their relationships and their very uncertain future in the business world. For whatever reasons the movie makers had in mind this mysterious "Ted" is never seen or heard from during the entire film even though he's mentioned more times then anyone else in it!Could the name "Ted" have been some kind of inside joke, on the part of the actors and crew, or was he just edited out, on the cutting room floor, in order to save on production costs? The movie seems to go absolutely nowhere for the first half hour until Eva, Marie-Josee Colburn, suggests that the by now bored to tears young people play a Ouija-Board like game called "Dead Mary". The game has each of Eve's friends go into the darkened bathroom, with a lighted candle, and speak out the name "Dead Mary" in the mirror three times. It's then that things start to liven up in the movie with almost everyone ending up dead when this evil spirit takes over the bodies of the persons playing the game. The spirit causes those whom it gains control of to first go insane and then go out and kill each other!What the movie "Dead Mary" does is have the evil spirit not only take over the bodies of the persons in it but give them an insight to their cheating on each others which seem to be, to those involved, far greater then them being brutally murdered. Matt, Jefferson Brown, the first victim of this horror ends up being dismembered in the woods yet is still alive, when he's found, to talk all kinds of gossip about his friends in them cheating on each others girlfriends and boyfriends.Those who find Matt are far more shocked and startled in the revelations he brings out about them then in Matt's obviously desperate condition in him being, besides a talking head, in pieces all over the forest floor! it's then that each of persons at the cabin start to go off the deep end in not trusting each other and thus ending, in order not to be killed by the evil spirit, doing each other in!What makes "Dead Mary" worth watching is the dark and eerie photography that has you feeling that, like those in the film, your in some kind of ghostly forest where it never stops raining. The acting is also a lot better then you would expect in a slasher movie like "Dead Mary" with those in it actually acting like grown ups with real problems not just jumping in bed with each other at every given opportunity.Besides the aforementioned actors and actresses there's also Kim, Dominique Swain, who's about the only person in the film who keeps from cracking up and letting herself being controlled by "Dead Mary's" evil spirit. The same can't be said for everyone else in the movie who end up losing it, their minds and lives, when they unconsciously let "Dead Mary" take them over.