Urban Legend: Bloody Mary

(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.

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.

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")

Samantha Owens (Kate Mara) have her two girlfriends for a sleepover. They are interrupted by Sam's brother David. They are all outcasts after Sam published a school news story denouncing the football players. The girls recount a story about the murder of Mary Banner in 1969. She and two other girls were drugged by the football players. Sam also talk about the urban legend of Bloody Mary. Next day, the girls are gone and David accuses the football players of foul play. Sam and her friends reappear later that afternoon disheveled and suffering from the after-effects of a drugging. Soon, the jocks and the captain's girlfriend Heather Thompson are showing up dead in unusual circumstances. Sam and David track down one of the girls from the 1969 incident, Grace Taylor.

The biggest name here is Kate Mara. It's odd that Sam's two friends aren't actually main characters. It doesn't help that they are limited actors. David isn't much better but at least, he's functional. Quite frankly, his role is unnecessary and Kate Mara should have been the only protagonist. The story should follow Sam and her two friends from the drugging onwards. The only good kill is the spiders and the CGI is cheap anyways. It's still creepy good. The other kills are either boring or silly or both. There are other issues and this never had a chance to be better than a B-horror.

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.