Mary Had a Little Lamb

Trying to boost its flagging ratings, a true-crime podcaster enlists her crew to look into a case where several people have disappeared in the local woods and goes off to look into the case, but when they arrive find the culprit to be a strange woman and her hulking masked son killing everyone they come across.

This was a massively entertaining effort with a lot to really enjoy about it. One of the finest aspects here is the stronger-than-expected storyline that takes a few cues from the iconic nursery rhyme but goes off into an intriguing spin on its own. The idea of the podcast show looking for their own boost to their numbers and finding a story ripped from the headlines that they can investigate is a solid enough idea that lights a fire on them to do it with the ultimatum to fix everything. This causes the group to stumble into the clutches of the psychotic family as the mysterious woman and equally psychotic lamb-masked hulking son arrive to be offsetting before the turn that reveals them to be the cause of the disappearances gives everything a solid start to things. That comes to the forefront with this one providing a series of gruesome and graphic ambush scenes with the terrifying killer being used quite effectively. The opening where he ruthlessly chops a victim to pieces like a dinner carving in front of a screaming victim strapped to a chair at the table is a fantastic touch to get an idea of the brutality in store, much like the shock ambush in the house where he takes out one of the team members. Later scenes where it takes out the amorous couple in the house, delivers a great ambush at the disabled car parked in the woods, or chases another victim through the woods bring about some incredibly fun scenes that set the stage for a wild finale featuring a dark diner party filled with brutal deaths and some shocking revelations about everything that's taking place. The reveal about the finale is rather well-handled here and has a lot to like. Being a fun spin on the titular rhyme involving how their deranged relationship makes it possible for the twisted family dynamic to work quite well to explain the lack of attention they have and the way they operate together which is all pretty much given beforehand before getting spelled out in grand detail in the finale. Granted, this is entirely way too cheesy to be taken seriously, especially with the low budget on display this one has, and it causes this section to be quite silly and goofy. That so much of this one section is used from other films being repeated again speaks slightly to the repeated nature of this concept being used in the genre so to bring this up again is a bit to hold this down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Needless to say that I had of course not heard about this 2023 slasher horror movie titled "Mary Had a Little Lamb" prior to stumbling upon it here in 2025 by random chance. I can't exactly claim that I harbored any particular big expectations to the movie, given it's title. But still, on account of it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to check out what director Jason Arber had to offer.

Essentially this movie was just a run-of-the-mill slasher flick of a deranged killer very an inarticulate mask. So writers Harry Boxley and Sarah Josepha Hale didn't bring anything new to the slasher horror genre, aside from using a children's song as the foundation upon which they based their script.

The pacing of the narrative left much to be desired, as it was a rather slow paced one. There wasn't really all that much thrilling or scary happening throughout the course of the 80 minutes that the movie ran for, and that made sitting through this somewhat of a test of wills at times.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Danielle Scott. Yep, I've seen enough dubious low budget horror movies to be familiar with her. The acting performances in the movie were actually fair.

The effects in the movie were fair, but nothing outstanding.

The sounds that the Lamb, Mary's son, was making made absolutely zero sense. Sure, I get that it was for scare effect, but it just made no sense whatsoever. But personally I found those bestial, guttural and inhuman growling sounds that Lamb made just ruined the scenes that were supposed to be scary. It made the character laughable.

Watchable for what it was, but "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was essentially a generic slasher flick that brought nothing exciting to the genre. And if you've seen your share of slasher flicks, then there is very little to be had here. I think "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is suitable for newcomers to the slasher horror genre.

My rating of director Jason Arber's 2023 movie "Mary Had a Little Lamb" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

This movie did a great job of making me feel it was nearing its climatic end when in reality I was only 5 minutes into it. May Kelly has a great voice but it's hard to watch as her lips don't move when she talks, just her mouth opening and closing. It's like a weird meat puppet mouth.

No lightbulb was actually harmed or turned on during the filming of this project.

It's very heart warming knowing that all these "filmed in a day" movies have an eternal home on Amazon prime video to justify Amazon continuing to raise prices and lower quality.

Wait, I forgot I was watching this movie. Mary have had a little lamb, but Carla has a bull ring and an appetite for mutton.

Okay, I'm starting to believe that there's a factory someone in Britain which effectively has a 'production line' which churns out low budget horror films based on source material related to children fairy tales. I'm a fan of horror flicks in general and don't mind the odd low budget if the movie makes up for it with other qualities. And not I've seen a fair few on a well-known streaming service which all basically have the same cast, the same location and, as mentioned, very loosely based on a children's nursery rhyme.

Now, if all those qualities don't unite them - they're all also pretty dire. However, this one was actually decent (and I use that word loosely!) enough to keep me entertained for the duration. But, don't get wrong - it's no masterpiece, even in terms of B-movies.

If you didn't know what the film was called, you'd probably never guess it was based on a nursery rhyme. You'd probably just think it was called 'Poodle Maniac' or something, as the killer runs around with a giant mutated poodle's head on him. Or at least it looked like that particular breed of dog. Unless anyone can tell me what other animal it was supposed to be?

A group of podcasters... do you care? Do you really need to know what the reason is that means yet another group of people are stranded in the middle of nowhere (this time in England) well out of the reach of mobile phone range, but just in reach of a mother/son nut-job combo. You won't care about the characters - two of which make up both halves of the most awkward and unlikely couple I've seen on screen in a long time. The others all just have weird accents like they're English trying to do an American accent, or vise versa.

About the 'best' cast member is the screwy mother, Mary. She chews up the scenery like you've never seen. Not a great actress, but at least memorable among the cast - I'll say that. And the gore's not bad either. It's not amazing in as much as none of the kills are particularly inventive, but at least they look realistic (as realistic as when you've just been killed by someone dressed as a half human/half farm animal).

In terms of horror B-movies I have definitely seen worse. Many I end up turning off within the opening twenty minutes. This one was bad, but it was watchable in a bad sort of way. Does that make sense?

Rhys Frake Waterfield had a hand in this but i only just saw it recently. I kind of passed it up by accident and found it on ebay. I am very easily curiosified or so. So i had to see it. Killer Sheep? Please. Thought it might be like Black Sheep. Close. I love, love the 2 Killer Pooh Bear movies, very much. So the "little lamb" is quite large, quite large. So his mother was a woman and his daddy a sheep? Not how its said in the movie but okay women aren't raped by men and have half human half sheep. But whatever, i went with it. Poor kills. Story was fair. 20$ budget. The ending cuts off. Not near as good as the blood & hunnys.