Urban Legend: Bloody Mary

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.

Mary Lambert, who brought us "Pet Sematary" and "Pet Sematary II" brings us this unrelated sequel into the "Urban Legend" series. The movie starts out on prom night, years ago. A prank-gone-wrong takes place in the attic of a high school involving a girl named Mary. The guys responsible for the prank assume her dead, and lock her body in a trunk. Cut to present day. A group of teenage girls are spending the night, having a slumber party, telling urban legends to pass the time, all leading up to the infamous "Bloody Mary" legend. On their third and final bloody Mary chant, the girls end up getting kidnapped by some jocks who are performing a revenge prank mainly on a girl named Samantha. They all return safely, a little shaken and confused after the bizarre event. But our main character, Samantha, begins having visions after the prank, mainly of Bloody Mary - and people start to die off. Is it all a joke, or is Bloody Mary back to take revenge? It's up to Samantha to uncover Mary's origins and stop the vengeful spirit.

When I heard about this sequel, I was thinking "Okay, okay - this might be decent". And for the most part, it was. I saw the DVD at a local retail store and decided to buy it because I was curious. This film has nothing to do with the other two films at all, this one is much more supernatural rather than a slasher mystery. The acting was decent, not perfect but it passed. I enjoyed Lambert's "Pet Sematary" and I (unlike most people) enjoyed the sequel as well. The script for this film is predictable, the audience pretty much knows what actions the characters will take before they actually do it. The camera-work/cinematography was alright for a straight-to-video release, and the special effects were just okay, they unfortunately come off as a little bit corny in some of the sequences (especially the sequence that took place between Mary and the teenage boy at the motel). But hey, I wasn't expecting this movie to be perfect. The spider scene was actually pretty creepy looking, if not a little cheesy too. The deaths were quite creative and original, I'll give it that.

To sum things up, "Urban Legends: Bloody Mary" is a mediocre but semi-fun horror sequel. It's not great, it's really not bad. It's just somewhere right in the middle. I suppose it could've been worse. If you enjoy supernatural revenge movies (along the lines of "Pet Sematary"), or if you like Lambert's previous work, you may want to check this out. It's flawed and predictable, but overall entertaining. There's no need to see the other two films though, because this one has nothing to do with them. 5/10.

These days the game in horror is a horrible business. Pity the poor filmmaker: she has to have enough formula to give the viewer something to rely on. After all, in a horror film, most of the work is done by the audience. We willingly supply all the imaginative components that thrill us. All the movie does is provide cues based on, derived from milestones in the genre.

But at the same time, that beleaguered filmmaker has to be novel enough to engage so far as the story and the metaphysical logic behind it. Usually, that is a matter of just mixing existing elements in a slightly new way and that's what we have here.

It is part ghost story, after the manner of recent much better films. It is part traditional slasher where an unknown human seems to be always in the right place to exact revenge (usually revenge, here a cover-up). And it is part that twist on the ghost story that kicked off the series: the notion that urban legends have a power of their own to invade the world and become real — the spectre that just thinking of hearing a story will have it land on you.

That novel notion wasn't fully exploited, but it is an intelligent a device as the movie within the movie of "The Ring."

And we have it here, dimly.

These three elements are mixed together with a bit more success than you would guess. It is still weak. But then, it has an appealing redheaded heroine.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

If you thought the second Urban Legend had little to do with the original ... wait til you see this here. The (Urban?) Legend of Bloody Mary is very well known in America. Through Horror movies I reckon it is very well known in the horror community around the world.

That being said, this direct to video "sequel" has a really commendable core story. A me too way before the me too movement. But is it enough to just rain praise on it? You'll be the ultimate judge for yourself. But really badly aged CGI and some odd story choices probably will not work in favor of the movie for most people.

Still it is nice to see some good acting in here, even if the choices and moral high ground it takes (excusing murder and death) are not always for the ... well best. Especially if you consider the very predictable (character) twist and the behavior that person displays ... completely ridiculous. Shame because some of the ideas for deaths are not really bad ... with make up effects even making up for the shoddy cgi (maybe)

The "Urban Legend" franchise returned with this straight-to-DVD installment but this time a supernatural spin was added to the series. While it's a decent idea, unfortunately, it didn't work. The main problem was that you never really got the sense that anything supernatural was going on to begin with. In the "Final Destination" films all the deaths were made to look like freak accidents yet you always knew that they weren't just accidents but that something supernatural was at work. It was the complete opposite in this movie. Despite constant reminders that the ghoulish Mary might be lurking about, most of the deaths still seemed like they really were just freak accidents. As if they weren't the result of something eerie but instead the result of extreme stupidity on the characters' part. It didn't help that the majority of the victims were thin stereotypes (dumb jocks and their air-headed girlfriends). Basically, I never felt like Mary was much of a threat.

Storywise, the film left a lot to be desired. For one, there's no relation between this film and the previous two UL films which was disappointing. Even "Final Cut", which had a new story and a new set of characters was still somehow connected to the original "Urban Legend". Also, the script for "Bloody Mary" felt disjointed at times. It's like they were more concerned with getting from Point A to Point B without much consideration to story. For example, a subplot early in the film where the jocks suspect a character of seeking revenge because of a prank just went nowhere and was forgotten after a few minutes. And then there are a bunch of seemingly important characters introduced during the first half of the film only to be forgotten during the second half, as if they never existed. On the acting side, the cast was barely okay. In the grand tradition of B-films, the heroine (Kate Mara) was the only one who showed any signs of promise with the rest of the cast displaying community theater performances. Especially Ed Marinaro who apparently never learned to act after his buff body and good looks faded away.

This movie was an obvious attempt at trying to revive the UL films by adding elements from such thrillers as "The Ring" and "The Grudge". But taking ideas from other films shouldn't come as a surprise for this series since the first two "Urban Legends" were ripoffs of "Scream" and "Scream 2" (what's next? An Urban Legend set in a hostel?). That wasn't entirely a bad thing since out of the dozens of "Scream" ripoffs, the UL films were the only good ones. They were fun and they added their own unique spin. Sadly, the same can't be said for "Bloody Mary" which does nothing fun or unique with the premise. And it certainly never comes close to being eerie or creepy like "The Ring" or "The Grudge" for the reasons mentioned above, the supernatural element wasn't established well enough and Mary is nowhere near as scary or even interesting as Samara or Kayako. She comes across more like a angry Goth girl with bad make-up. The film could have worked if they had a director who could have made Mary's scenes more chilling and atmospheric but instead they're just dull, uneventful and predictable.

One of the film's biggest offenses is that it completely betrays the title. The film has nothing to do with the actual legend of Bloody Mary or what she supposedly does when summoned. Rather than base the film on true Bloody Mary legends they come up with a lame story of their own involving a prom from 1969.

I didn't hate the movie like I thought I would but I also didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. I will say that "Bloody Mary" is at least worth checking out for the spider scene alone. That was the film's one true highlight.