Mary

Trapped on the open sea in a haunted boat is an oft-seen horror movie scenario, but rarely has it been used with as little imagination as in Mary. In telling his nautical tale of terror, director Michael Goi employs so many hackneyed techniques that even the talents of Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer cannot prevent the film from being a colossal waste of time.

Introducing his film at Frightfest, Goi claimed to have over 18,000 films in his collection, so one wonders why he directs like he's only ever seen a handful, and bad ones at that. One might think that with such a wealth of inspiration, he could have come up with something a little more creative... something that didn't rely so heavily on obvious supernatural jump scares accompanied by obligatory loud noises. The scenes intended to have me throwing my popcorn in the air in fright actually had me holding my head in dismay: this is about as basic as horror movies get.

3/10. I imagine that It'll be a case of abandon ship for many who dare to sail these treacherous waters.

A very disappointing movie, considering the cast. The only thing special about "Mary" is that it is set on a sail boat. Other than that it ticks all the boxes of your standard ghost movie that you've seen a hundred times before: people behaving strangely, jump scares, a kid drawing scary pictures, pointless fake-outs in the form of dream sequences ... you can name every single overused ghost movie trope ... it's in here. Any creativity is completely absent.

The biggest mistake that the movie makes, though, is to put everything in a overarching narrative with a police interrogation that tells you right off the bat who makes it and who doesn't, evaporating every last bit of suspense that "Mary" could have created.

What's left are good performances by a good cast and decent cinematography, none of which save this movie from complete mediocrity.

Even Nicolas "I will take any acting job for money" Cage passed this one. That should say enough. The movie is boring and takes too long building up the characters and story. And when it finally should take off, it never really does. It's not scary, not exciting and no fun. Calling this "horror" is a complete joke.

Mary is one of those films that sets sail but has no real sense of direction. Its biggest short coming in my opinion is the premise is sound but the setting is wrong.

A modestly sized family yacht, simply doesn't provide enough physical space and as a consequence scope, to meet the expectations, this horror aspires to. Its as if, for example, Friday the 13th, was set in a phone booth. its far too constrained and has to fall back on drawn out physiological tension, in a vain attempt, to compensate.

The result is a slow, predictable and ultimately, rather anti climatic film, that takes the viewer nowhere interesting. That's in spite of a strong cast, quality acting and decent cinematography.

Marginally watchable but that said, there are far better horror films with a nautical bent on offer, like 80's classic, The Fog. 5/10 from me.

It's actually not so much the ability of the actors to act (I don't think anybody will see Gary Oldman and doubt he can act), but it is the script and the horror movie cliches/tropes that will likely get you quite upset. To say the least. And you also have other people in here (Emily Mortimer), who are way above anything in depth, that the movie can offer them.

Having said all that and all the things that are predictable, the movie can still be enjoyable to a certain degree/level. You have to be a fan and not mind the flaws that are littered throughout the running time.