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.
