Wanting to make a better life for his family, David (Gary Oldman), a blue-collar captain buys an old abandoned ship, named Mary, that is up for auction. In hopes of turning their new investment into a tour boat, the family works hard in preparing the ship for sea. After their small crew – David, his wife Sarah (Emily Mortimer), their two daughters, and a couple of other obligatory red shirt characters – set sail on a voyage, strange and spooky things begin to happen. The most mysterious being, Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer starring in this rather bland, low-budget horror film that offers nothing new or exciting to the genre.
MARY is a fairly typical “haunting” horror film, except with the location on a boat rather than a house. Think GHOSTSHIP, but on a much smaller scale without the amusing gory opening. The other major difference is the previously mentioned starring of two incredibly talented actors, Oscar winner Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer. I confess the actors are what initially drew me to watch the film, with hopes that there might be something special or different about the project. If only…
MARY goes through the basic set up and climax of the protagonists unaware they are in a horror film until it’s too late, while the audience is way ahead of everyone on screen the entire time. The story and background as to why the ghost is ghosting are fairly thin and mostly forgettable. The lack of communication between characters, especially loved ones, always baffles me and there are a few silly ones here. Why would you not tell your daughter that a kid she likes came at her dad with a knife, thus causing her to be angry with dad instead of the boy who you definitely want to keep her away from?
Director Michael Goi has had some success working in television and as a capable cinematographer, but fails to utilize his space on the confined ship in the vast ocean. There is little sense of confinement or claustrophobia and the characters tend to have too much distance from one another when the square feet of the small vessel would say otherwise. Screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski (THE SHALLOWS) never fully defines the rules or motivations within the power of the cursed ship. Nor do the characters feel fully realized with any interesting reasons as to why an audience should worry or root for them. These are all contributing factors that create a horror film completely void of thrills, chills, or the slightest resemblance of tension.
At 84 minutes, MARY is a brisk viewing with a handful of jump scares that might satisfy a certain audience who enjoy the easy, cliche-ridden, horror genre. Oldman and Mortimer give it their all, but I get the impression that they were having difficulty finding some of their character’s motivations. Ultimately, you’re much better off watching the ghostless, but much scarier, 1989 thriller DEAD CALM.
