Mary

Trapped on the open sea in a haunted boat is an oft-seen horror movie scenario, but rarely has it been used with as little imagination as in Mary. In telling his nautical tale of terror, director Michael Goi employs so many hackneyed techniques that even the talents of Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer cannot prevent the film from being a colossal waste of time.

Introducing his film at Frightfest, Goi claimed to have over 18,000 films in his collection, so one wonders why he directs like he's only ever seen a handful, and bad ones at that. One might think that with such a wealth of inspiration, he could have come up with something a little more creative... something that didn't rely so heavily on obvious supernatural jump scares accompanied by obligatory loud noises. The scenes intended to have me throwing my popcorn in the air in fright actually had me holding my head in dismay: this is about as basic as horror movies get.

3/10. I imagine that It'll be a case of abandon ship for many who dare to sail these treacherous waters.