I like when movies start in the present for a moment and then flash back to tell the story of how we got to this point. Especially if the present moment is creating questions, rather than spoiling what’s going to happen (I still hate you for that Carlito’s Way).
‘The Last Thing Mary Saw’ starts in 1843 with the titular character blindfolded and standing before a small panel of men who aim to shoot her right then and there if they suspect she’s a witch or something else bad – I say something else because in those days of American Christianity, there were a hell of a lot of infractions for which one could be severely punished, even 150 years after the Salem Witch Trials. Blood drips from beneath Mary’s blindfold. We are curious.
For example, being a homosexual would be a serious no-no, but Mary (Stefanie Scott) and the family’s maid, Eleanor (Isabelle Fuhrman, so good in the current The Novice) are in deep into the” forbidden love” that will ultimately lead to brutal punishment and maybe more. Unlike the recent film Benedetta, in which the character’s lesbian love was handled on a much larger scale, Mary is dealing with her family who seem not far removed from Puritanism and the severe rules of that game.
But I don’t mean to make it sound like the film is all about religion or sexual identity, what brings it into the horror/thriller genre, if just barely, is the fact that the main characters are living in fear and are in a large family where no one trusts anyone else and everyone round the dinner table is always a potential offender.
When the family matriarch dies (a super creepy Judith Roberts) the family follows a rule that everyone remain silent for, I think it was 24 hours, but no one can speak. There is a virtuosos scene that director Edoardo Vitaletti has assembled that has the family silently sitting at the table as Eleanor silently serves them dinner and then…tea. It’s a good ten minute or more of silent tension and it made the movie for me.
The film is lit and photographed like a Caravaggio painting – candlelit face partially emerging from pitches black darkness.
Within the genre, the film is fairly reserved, there is some gore, not much, but when we see how Mary’s eyes came to be bloody, it’s a payoff that is well earned after the subtle, some will say slow, narrative progression. I liked it.
The Last Thing Mary Saw streams on Shudder starting January 20th| 3 out of 4 stars
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