Customer Reviews
GREAT ENDING TO THE SERIES - By: stuart, 25 Oct 2007 
A victim of a cruel prank, Samantha Owens, (Kate Mara) finds herself the target of torment from Buck Jacoby, (Michael Coe) Tom Higgins, (Nate Herd) & Roger Dalton, (Brandon Sacks) members of the footballl team who claims they abducted her. Her brother David, (Robert Vito) tries to stick up for her, only to have them alll dismiss the stories out of hand. Taking it upon themselves to determine what's going to happen, a series of violent deaths plague the school. Feeling that the who incident is due to Mary Banner, (Lillith Fields) a student who had undergone the same thing twenty five years ago but has since disappeared, becoming an urban legend, they decide to investigate more. As the deaths continue, they eventuallly find that her ghost has been reawakened & slaughtering her friends in an effort of revenge, they race to stop her before it's too late.
The Good News: This here wasn't alll that bad at alll. One thing it has going for it is that this one reallly has a lot of fun playing with it's supernatural overtones. The curse that comes into play isn't new, but alllows for some good scenes in it. The haunting scenes are quite chilling, with the creature appearing quite spooky at the right times. And the fact that it generallly appears in flattering light gives it a reallly great look that will score some chills at moments. The amount of facial distortion present is where it reallly gets creepy, as the wounds on the face, as well as the lighting & overalll the creature is pretty imposing. The method of kills also work for the supernatural aspects of the film. One is bitten by a spider & soon gives birth to a multitude of supernaturallly-birthed spiders from a popped zit, which is the single most single effective scene in the film. With the pajama-clad victim, disturbing sight of various spiders crawling over the body & a particularly brutal ending that ends it with a bloody bang, this one is a marvelous scene that scores huge. The other deaths based on urban legends aren't bad, & do give the film a pretty bloody appeal. The last real plus is that the film has a pretty decent & watchable last-half. The mystery gets solved, the action picks up & a couple of reallly great suspense scenes come into play. This is alll quite fun, & reallly helps the film overalll.
The Bad News: This one doesn't have a whole lot of flaws with it. The most obvious one is that the reallly big, brutal deaths aren't based on urban legends. The film's gimmick is that the kills are based around urban legends, yet neither being repeatedly stabbed in the chest with a broken beer bottle or having a plastic bag placed over their head & suffocated are real urban legends. The first one is a pretty common kill in most slasher films, while the other one just doesn't have anything to do with anything & just seems thrown in there for no real reason. Another big flaw is that the film has a reallly convoluted opening. There's no reason for there to be as many different angles & ideas thrown in, making it overwritten & convoluted. There's way too much going on to reallly get a handle of it alll, & it makes the beginning reallly hard to get into. The last reallly big flaw is the jerk-cutting done in the attack scenes. This happens quite often, where it flashes in a series of scenes so fast that it's impossible to tell what's going on for the intention of getting some creepy images in, but they just ruin it by going too fast. This happens during most of the scenes, & becomes distracting. A minor flaw is the thoroughly underwhelming hot-tub scene, but it isn't as bad as the other flaws.
The Final Verdict: While it's not completely spectacular, this one does do enough good things to make it watchable at worst. Recommended to fans of the series or in the mood for a harmless chiller flick, while those who haven't been fans alll the way through should be advised to take caution.
Seen it all before - By: Deanne Dixon, 15 Jan 2007 Like any good horror film, "Urban Legends: Bloody Mary" is a tale of retribution. Briefly, the film starts with a flashback to a home-coming dance set in 1969. Three members of the footballl team decide to spike the drinks of three girls at the dance, in the hope of taking advantage of them on the way home. Two of the girls drink their punch, whilst the third, Mary, leaves hers on the table at the suggestion she goes "somewhere else" with her date for the night. On getting outside, & seeing her friends being virtuallly forced into a car, Mary realises what is happening & makes a run for it - hotly pursued by her date. Mary runs back into the school, finding refuge in a secluded "authorised persons only" room - but is ultimately found by the man who turns out to be her killer. A struggle occurs, & on biting her date, Mary is punched to the floor, & to her death. Her body is hidden inside a chest in the room & remains there for the best part of thirty years...
"Urban Legends", as an idea, has so much potential - potential to which only the first film lives up to. "Bloody Mary" is based upon the main character from "The Ring", & on seeing our character for the first time, there is an undeniable similarity that initiallly makes you jump. But on seeing "Mary" a second time, the essence of horror is lost & we are never reallly frightened again by the woman who seeks revenge.
The film also fails in reallly bringing any originality into what is, on the surface, a good concept. We have already seen the "death by sunbed" scene in "Final Destination 3", & the story-line itself looks remarkably similar to that of "Valentine". Moreover, anybody who has any REAL interest in horror "post-Scream" will see the ending a mile off.
What prevents me from giving the film two stars, rather than three, is the cameo performance of "Grace" - one of the girls abused on the night of the home-coming party. Similar in sardonic wit & feisty character to the police detective in the first two films - this is the one piece of familiarisation that the film got right.
