Mary (Blu-ray Review)
David (Academy Award Winner Gary Oldman) is a struggling blue-collar captain looking to make a better life for his family. Strangely drawn to an abandoned ship that is up for auction, David impulsively buys the boat, believing it will be his family’s ticket to happiness and prosperity. But soon after they embark on their maiden journey, strange and frightening events begin to terrorize David and his family, causing them to turn on one another and doubt their own sanity. With tensions high, the ship drifts off course, and it becomes horrifyingly clear that they are being lured to an even greater evil out at sea.
Film 
Mary is the story of a family, who after years of working hard with nothing to show for it, embark on a new stage in their life when the patriarch of the family, David (Gary Oldman), buys a beat-up boat to start up their own charter-boat business. His wife, Sarah (Emily Mortimer), does not approve but goes along with the plan. The boat is called “Mary” and what caught David’s eye was that of the sculpted woman on the bow of the ship. She is almost frozen in time stuck to the front of the ship. Since David got an offer that he could not refuse it was a no-brainer on acquiring the beat-up boat.
Once the family and crew are out at sea – strange things begin to happen, where we have the family getting strange visions in their sleep. They also begin to hear to strange voices and sounds. The stressful occurrences begin to take their toll on everyone aboard the ship.
Mary was a lot of fun. In fact, the two films I would compare it to would be that of John Carpenter’s Christine and Bill Paxton’s Frailty. The boat is the embodiment of evil and she pretty much tries to corrupt everyone onboard. It’s all wrapped up in a ghost story, which is fine by me. Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer add some gravitas to the production, which is of high-quality caliber. Mary has great production values.
Mary does not pretend to be anything more than a nice haunted ship ghost story. It’s a compact little film that runs less than 90-minutes. It has plenty of nice scares, special effects, and is a no-nonsense little horror film that had me entertained from start to finish. Had I seen it all before? Yes, that’s why I made the earlier comparisons — we’re on familiar and chartered territory. Give Mary a spin and see for yourself.
Video 
Encoding: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Clarity/Detail: Contrast levels were nice and steady, and I did not detect any instances of post-production tweaking with regards to those levels. Sharpness levels were also stable – giving the image a film-like quality.
Depth: The scenes taking place on the ocean, whether in the day or night, really give the impression that the crew of the Mary are all alone — it’s a testament to the Blu-ray.
Black Levels: The majority of Mary takes place at night, so get ready to be bathed by a solid field of pristine black levels. Crush was nowhere to be found on this Blu-ray presentation.
Color Reproduction: The color palette is somewhat muted when it comes to darkly lit interiors but when the film takes place on the docks and on the ocean – it looks bright and pretty.
Flesh Tones: Flesh tones were stable — only when ghostly apparitions made themselves known did their complexion turn ghastly. Outside of a character that may have fallen ill – everyone looked great.
Noise/Artifacts: I only found a few instances of minor noise and those were during the aerial daytime shots — whether they were part stock footage or not I am not sure, but it doesn’t take away from the film at all — it’s just noticeable.
Audio
Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Dynamics: Mary has a very dynamic DTS 5.1 lossless presentation. All of the sound variables come together and work in unison. It’s not every day that you come across a reasonably budgeted horror-thriller that sounds bloody good like this. Props go out to the sound designers and mixers.
Low Frequency Extension: The LFE subwoofer channel works overtime in recreating the low-end horror down in the hull. The LFE is really aggressive without being overpowering.
Surround Sound Presentation: The surround sound channels are the real highlight on this Blu-ray disc. You will hear plenty of creepy occurrences in the background like voices, footsteps, slamming of objects. The cool part of that is that it may or may not match the action that is happening onscreen. It plays on hidden fear.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue levels are clean and pristine. Among the screams of terror – everyone could be heard and understood very clearly.
Extras
The extras are minimal and are made up of two really short featurettes and a photo gallery. The cast and director Michael Goi seemed to have all gotten along and had a blast making the film, which is great.
- The Making of Mary
- A Family at Sea: The Cast of Mary
- Photo Gallery
Summary
Mary was an unexpected thrill-ride and I had a great time watching the Blu-ray. It does have some familiar tropes but what it pulls from is all top-shelf horror, so that’s fine with me. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, but the extras are minimal. Mary is recommended!
Mary is available on Blu-ray
& DVD November 26, 2019!
ORDER NOW!
