Urban myths and legends have been around forever. Everyone can recall stories of growing up and hearing about the couple on lover's lane who narrowly miss meeting a hook-handed killer and there's lots of campfire tales that have stood the test of time but I doubt any have had the lasting impact of "Bloody Mary". You all know the deal: it's said that if you stand in front of the mirror and say her name five times she'll come for you. It was definitely able to scare the crap out of me as a tyke and has wormed its way into popular culture but, upon viewing our offering here, I'm still wondering why there hasn't been a successful attempt to bring the legend to a horror flick. Granted, I was entertained by the third Urban Legend entry and the sequence in Paranormal Activity 3 was the best scene in that one but it's things like this stinker that makes me wonder how such a simple hand-me-down tale could be done so wrong.

I have to admit that Bloody Mary actually did start with minor promise as some nursing students working at a local asylum are in the process of hazing one of their own under the lead of bitchy, sorority sister-like Jenna (Danni Hamilton, whose British accent slips up constantly). Our victim is forced to disrobe (yay for pointless nudity!), crawl into the tunnels running underneath the hospital and approach an ominous mirror hanging on the wall. She soon falls victim to the ghostly title killer who chases her down and murders her while her fellow students listen in.

From here writer-director Richard Valentine proceeds to deliver a muddled story that has various employees and patients at the asylum falling prey to the supernatural slashings of Mary who, in what's quite the head scratcher, seems to have enslaved Jenna and her friends (after they've played the ingeniously titled "Mirror Game") to do her bidding and deliver her new victims. Amongst people getting knocked off and having their eyes placed into labeled jars - staged by Valentine as a mix of otherworldly menace and black gloved giallo stylings - we have our opening victim's sister Natalie (Kim Tyler) poking around to try and locate her missing sister (much to Jenna's displeasure), which also has her digging up a lame back story for Mary, on the way to a finale so "meh" I barely even remember what happened.

In the hands of Valentine, Bloody Mary is a mess. Sure, he's crammed his flick with a high number of deaths but they're mostly staged in such a similar manner, and with such middling gore, we just don't care. He's also seen fit to throw in enough nudity to try and distract you from his crappy script which spends way too much time to Natalie's investigations while Jenna looks on with a cold stare and much passive aggressiveness. "Who cares?" just seemed to be my reaction to the entire thing.

Having to play the human villain to Mary's undead shenanigans, Hamilton is pretty piss-poor. She spends most of the movie (unconvincingly) being a cow to everyone around her and her poor attempt at an American accent is just too obvious - however, she does look pretty good naked. Tyler gets to be all serious and does what she can while Christian Schrapff stinks up the joint as Scooter who is constantly being manipulated by Jenna. The rest of the cast is pretty standard as is mostly the case for low-budget horror flicks. Valentine gets into the act as one of the many people credited for playing Mary and it's worth noting this marks an early appearance by "Glee" co-star, and recently deceased, Cory Monteith.

Yeah, you're going to want to avoid Bloody Mary. It offers nothing worthwhile, it doesn't do the folklore behind the character any favours and it's just another in a long-line of worthless supernatural slasher movies that littered the DVD landscape in the mid-00s. (Chris Hartley, 3/3/14)

Directed By: Richard Valentine.
Written By: Richard Valentine.

Starring: Kim Tyler, Matt Borlenghi, Danni Hamilton, Troy Turi.