Dead Mary (DVD)

Cabin Fever meets Evil Dead II meets The Big Chill in the worst of all ways in Dead Mary, the latest cabin-in-the-woods/forever friends/zombie direct to disk horror movie.

The focus is Kim (Dominique Swain) a 20-something on what she hopes will be the perfect reunion and weekend getaway for she and her BBFs from her college days. When the loquacious group grows tired of contemplating, confiding and courting, they decide to play a ghoulish game called Dead Mary, which is strikingly similar to Bloody Mary. OK… actually, it's no different at all. After each and every one of them is shown going into the darkened bathroom and saying to their reflection in the mirror – Dead Mary, Dead Mary, Dead Mary – one of them goes out alone in the lonely woods and is killed.

But he's not dead. When the corpse reanimates upon discovery, it jumps up only to be hacked back to death by a crazed Kim. Now, suspicion starts to filter throughout the once-friendly group. Is the dead guy really dead? Was Kim really protecting them, or was she trying to keep him quiet about a supernatural secret she might be hiding? What about the one chick who wasn't in their click? Who's harboring the sinister spirit of Dead Mary?

The first 45 minutes or so of Dead Mary is spent on Gen-Y whining about life, love, careers, and pining for the good old days (which was about five years ago, in my estimation). The last 45 minutes of the film does offer up some horror action and a dash of (surely unintentional) comedy, but the bloody bits are hardly worth waiting for. Unfortunately, once dead and zombiefied, these chatty chums are no less talkative than before — forget flesh ripping bites, they'll talk your ear off sooner than sink their teeth into it.

Dead Mary is serviceable enough as a direct-to-disk zombie flick, but it's awfully lifeless. Fans of her turn in Lolita will be disappointed by the pretty Swain looking mighty plain, and those who like a little art in their visuals will be further disappointed by the amateurish cinematography (highlights and whites routinely bloom out bad enough to burn retinas).

Extras include a half-hour making-of documentary showing interviews with a cast who're obviously making the best of it and at least trying to rouse some semblance of enthusiasm. I wish I could do the same, but I'm not an actor.

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