The Last Thing Mary Snoozed

 

Nothing pleases me more than when the trends I've longed for finally seem to catch on. For YEARS now, I've been begging the gods for more historical horror, something that was a true rarity for quite a while. Sure, we had sprinkles and sprinkles of some low budget attempts (and some were actually good) but I'm a greedy, greedy woman.

Robert Eggers' The VVitch answered my call, and has since helped usher in a small, quiet trend. Shudder's latest original seemed to fit that bill. But is it any good?

Quick Plot: It's 1843 on eastern Long Island, and teenage Mary is not living her best life. With blood dripping from her blindfolded eyes, she's forced to recount her past to the strict Calvinist town constable. 

Her story is not particularly cheery: after falling in love with Eleanor, the maid (Esther herself, Isabelle Furhman), Mary was put through a variety of cleansing rituals at the behest of her eerie grandmother. The rest of her extended family joined in her reprogramming, some with more enthusiasm than others. 

Things take an even darker turn after Granny's sudden death. The quiet funeral is interrupted by Rory Culkin as a mysterious agent of evil...or something.

I like to think of myself as an intelligent film fan who enjoys a thoughtful genre tale, but I have to say it: I am, it would seem, not smart enough to follow the plot steps of The Last Thing Mary Saw.

This is the debut of writer/director Edoardo Vitaletti, and as first films go, it's technically quite impressive. Period stories on limited budgets are never easy, but Vitaletti crafts an incredibly authentic landscape for his cast to moodily shuffle through. 

Of course, "moody shuffling" isn't always a positive way to define your movie. For an 85 minute runtime, The Last Thing Mary Saw feels awfully laborious. A forbidden queer love story should be compelling, but the film's tone is as Puritan as its characters. It doesn't help that Mary and Eleanor are both extremely bland in their romance and even dumber in their inability to cover it up. There comes a point where, because the film hasn't really decided its stakes, it becomes kind of impossible to understand just how aware of their danger these girls are. 

From both a plot and character place, this movie is muddy. It plays with big ideas about God and Christianity without coming to any clear conclusions (or really asking challenging questions). But worst of all, it's, I hate to say it, mostly very dull. 

High Points

EVENTUALLY, The Last Thing Mary Saw managed to surprise me with a fairly shocking act of violence that unfolded in a sufficiently disturbing way

Low Points

Having said that, two seconds before said shocking event, I wrote in my notes, "I want to like this movie so much but it's so boring and nothing is happening"

Lessons Learned (the 1800s Edition)

19th century firearms took a few minutes to reload, but moving slightly out of the way of said firearms apparently took even longer

If you can't manage to hide your illegal romance, at least learn how to make a decent pair of kneepads

Locks on doors were luxuries even the most upstanding families couldn't afford

Rent/Bury/Buy

I wish I could tell you to dim the lights and queue up The Last Thing Mary Saw on Shudder with a buttery bowl of popcorn in your lap. I'm not NOT telling you to make the popcorn, but sadly, I think there are better films that pair with it. A valiant effort. 

The Insidiousest

The general consensus at the announcement of 2015’s Insidious: Chapter 3 was an apathetic “oh, they made another Insidious movie.” As we’ve learned from American politics, much of humanity is horrible and awful and is often completely wrong.

Quick Plot: A few years before the actions of the first Insidious, other ghostly happenings occur. Quinn Brenner is a nice young high school senior hoping to make it into college on an acting scholarship. This will take her far away from her well-meaning but typically overbearing dad (Dermot Mulroney) who has put her in charge of the home and her younger brother following the death of his wife.

The only thing Quinn wants more than a killer monologue is to reconnect with her mother, who she believes to be present in her life in ghost form. Quinn reaches out to familiar face Elise Rainier (the one and only Lin Shaye), but the Insidious veteran has been having some problems of her own when it comes to entering The Further.

Elise, you see, recently lost her beloved husband. In trying to reach him, she has instead bumped into that familiar black-veiled senior citizen that once (and in the future) tortured two generations of the Lambert boys. As a result, Elise is a tad gun-shy when it comes to connecting with that other plain of existence.

Quinn, however, doesn’t really have a choice, as she’s somehow awakened an angry, homicidal spirit who’s trying to take her down into his hellish version of limbo. 

Insidious: Chapter 3 is written and directed by new wave horror veteran Leigh Whannell, who’s served as a screenwriter for most of James Wan’s projects. Whannell (who also shows up onscreen as the divisive pre-tie wearing ghostbuster Specs) clearly learned a whole lot from shadowing Wan over the last few years. Chapter 3 fits right into the series, and even offers some improvements.

While I enjoyed Insidious, the first sequel left me fairly disappointed, with the convoluted story getting in the way of the actual horror. Chapter 3 wisely simplifies things. Quinn’s haunting is straightforward and as a result, the film’s jump scares and visual chills hit quite well. We don’t have to know every detail about Quinn’s stalker. He’s just creepy.

The key ingredient in making this film work, however, is something far more special. Lin Shaye is the definition of a veteran character actor. She’s been in the business for decades but rarely seemed to get the spotlight. How nice is it that Leigh Whannell seemed to decide her time had finally come?

Shaye is wonderful in Insidious: Chapter 3, and more importantly, the movie pops because it has her at its center. Quinn’s story is fine on its own and young actress Stefanie Scott connects well, but around the halfway mark, Elise gets to take over and kick ass. It helps that the film develops her story, introducing the tragedy of her husband’s suicide (plus an adorably loyal golden retriever sidekick) to add weight to her psychic visits to The Further. 

This isn’t a game changer for horror, but it’s a solid, enjoyable, and whaddya know, actually scary entry into a successful franchise. This makes me eager to see more Whannell behind the camera, and equally eager to see the upcoming fourth film directed by The Taking of Deborah Logan’s Adam Robitel. 

High Points

34 years of watching horror movies has made me fairly immune to typical jump scares, but dangit, I gasped at least twice at simple scares that just worked exactly as they were designed to. Well done Mr. Whannell

As I said about the first Insidious’s devotion to having its characters NOT make the token cliched mistakes found in every haunted house flick of years past (not moving, not turning on the lights) it’s also refreshing to see Chapter 3 make a clear point of NOT having Quinn’s dad waste screentime doubting his daughter’s hauntings. 

Low Points

Much in the way the first Insidious included a baby sibling purely for the convenience of using a creepy baby monitor, this one seems to include a younger brother just for, well, help with the internet?

Lessons Learned

If you’re food shopping for a teenage girl in any movie made after 1995, always assume she’s a vegetarian to avoid the well-meaning offering of jerky only to have her tell you what I just did

Save the word "literally" for when you're literally being literal (thanks, millennial best friend character who cements her status as the secret mini-MVP of this movie)

You might think you’re tough, but trust me: you’re not as tough as Lin Shaye

Look! It’s--

James Wan cameoing as the director overseeing Quinn’s audition. That’s cute.

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’m genuinely shocked by how much I enjoyed Insidious: Chapter 3. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s familiar in some ways and incredibly fresh in others. I found the film via HBO Go, but if it turns up near you, give it a go. You don’t necessarily have to watch the first two (and certainly not the second) to enjoy this one. Just enjoy it as a strong little ghost story. I think you’ll be pleased.