Director: David Gregory
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Summoning Bloody Mary, Curse of Bloody Mary
Genre: Supernatural Slasher
Plot:
Preparing for a special reunion, a group of friends decide to arrive at a special yoga retreat in the woods to help heal old wounds and catch up with their lives, but when the festivities summon the witch known as Bloody Mary is stalked and killed by the menacing figure and must try to stop her.
Review:
This was a decidedly dull if still somewhat enjoyable feature. One of the better elements present with this one is the idea of trying to turn the Bloody Mary legend into a slightly different alteration of the story, yet still keeping enough of the main storyline intact. Going with the concept of the figure as the ghost of a witch who had initially tried to use her powers to lure and kill children so that she can resurrect her dead child, the ensuring curse that comes about makes for a fine way to connect the story as the use of the mirror to speak the summoning incantation. This is quite a decent way to offer up a different enough twist by bringing the story to a slightly different pathway even with the main gist remaining the same, and with the first half offering up a way of building that alongside the different characters who arrive at the retreat with their personal motivations for reconnecting or being involved, this all comes together well enough.
Once the creature has been summoned and let loose on the group, there’s some fun to be had with the stalking and general confrontations featured here. The eeriness of the summoning sequence offering up the group individually attempting to do the ritual through candle-lit bathrooms that are immediately blown out the second it’s attempted does what it needs to set things in motion, while the first encounters here taking out the few stragglers at the resort before going after the main group offer up some tense moments through the use of filtered lighting throughout. With the finale moving into a frantic and generally feverish pace, showing the various confrontations with the genuinely creepy figure toying with victims, laughing maniacally, or just squirming around frantically while chasing after them in unconventional, twisting movements, there are some tense aspects here to give this one some positives.
There are some elements here that bring this one down. Among the main aspects found here is the rather bland and slow-building first half that highlights how pretty cheap this one is. The first half spends the time it does looking into the relationships of the friend group, going through their backstory, or what the setup of the retreat offers, making for a dull time without much of anything happening at all, with the summoning ritual occurring around the forty-five-minute mark. For a film already this short, the idea of going over the halfway mark without a hint of anything terrifying being featured makes this feel much longer than it really is, since there’s no real chance of this featuring any kind of gore or other special effects to help boost what’s going on. The simplified setup, one-location placing, and flimsy make-up present also don’t help matters at all, bringing this one down overall.
Overview: **.5.5
A much-better-than-expected if still underwhelming feature, this has some likable factors to it that overcome some of the rather problematic flaws featured here, which do have some damaging aspects to the film. Those with an interest in this style of indie fare, aren’t bothered by the flaws here, or are fans of the creative crew, will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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