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SYNOPSIS:
For Kim and her college friends it was supposed to be a chill
weekend reunion at their favourite lake cabin. But when they
begin playing a goulish game called "Dead Mary",
they unwittingly unleash a vengeful spirit of a demonic witch
that secretly possesss one of them. One by one the friends
fall victim to the undead spirit and no one knows who to trust
- or who to kill - in this gripping thriller that prove best
friends are the best prey.
MOVIE
REVIEW
Coming
in at number 3 of the Singapore Dvd Rental chart for dates
ending on 27th September, it was intriguing to find out what
kind of attraction that Dead Mary have, that could achieve
more rental than movies like Jay Chou’s Secret
and Disney’s Meet
the Robinsons. It spiked this reviewer’s interest
even more as Dead Mary was totally undetected in this fanatic
movie chaser’s radar. Could it be another undiscovered
straight to video gems (such as Seraphim Falls) that been
on the rise in the Dvd Rental Market in Singapore or could
it be just another “oh it’s horror, I must rent”
type of mentality that zombified most of our Singapore audience?
After reviewing the show, my guess would be that it was an
automated reaction to the lure of horror in most of the renter’s
mind when in comes to choosing this movie. This low budget
looking film did has its moment but definitely a long way
from it’s peers like Donnie Darko and Cube that went
on to create cult fandom.
Ironically, as a supernatural horror thriller, this film never
really places much emphasis on the spook factors or ghostly
occurrence. After spending one third of the film establishing
the various characters’ relationships problems, the
supposedly morbid game of Dead Mary was casually introduced
without even declaring the penalty of calling out for the
vengeful demonic witch. It just seems that this demonic witch
has no motivation in doing all this haunting except it was
conveniently required in the script. Even the remote cabin
location and method of call the evil beings (chant thy name
three times) felt so lazily copied from other horror classic
that came before (Fiday the 13th or Candyman anyone?).
But then again, there were some parts that were good enough
to check out. One of them would be this dialogue from a possessed
victim that made a meaningful revelation about people who
survive this horrifying event are likely to be haunted by
nightmarish memories for life, panning an eternal doom and
dread for all those who are involved. There were also a couple
of mutilated human body parts scenes that also stood out,
specially for a low budget film like Dead Mary which seems
to shy away revealing too much of the supernatural elements
due to cost constrain.
Bottom line, it’s not a very good horror movie. It spends
too much time in focusing on boy-girl relationship matters
till a point that the horror elements seem secondary. Perhaps
labeling Dead Mary as a drama movie with mild horrified elements
would sound more correct. It will make a good training film
for those that are too afraid to try horror movies or a film
for people to watch at home in a lazy Sunday afternoon.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
The Making of Dead Mary (26.14mins) – Basically
this making of consists of the cast speaking about their respective
roles and some behind the screen footages. There isn’t
really nothing new or interestingly informative that the cast
member had to input about their roles since it was already
apparent in the movie itself.
Evolved
Monkey (4.07mins) – Features a music video
for a song that was used in this movie. Personally, it’s
a rather forgettable song and music video for an unremarkable
film.
Trailers
– 3 Trailers are included in this DVD. 2 of
the trailers are for Ghost Rider and Perfect Stranger that
was shown in our local cinemas this year. The last one is
for Pumpkinhead IV: Blood Feud which makes one wonder if it
is available in our local Dvd rental shops.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The visual for Dead Mary presented in 1:85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
comes as clean and crisp as movies are expected nowadays.
There are English and Thai 5.1 Dolby Digital audio tracks
and English, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Thai subtitles
to choose from.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Richard Lim Jr
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