I think the best way to warn people against Mary, a painfully poor horror movie from the director of the stupid-and-why-can't-more-people-see-it-is-stupid Megan Is Missing (honestly, I have no idea how so many people were so affected by that film, apart from considering it an internet-savvy way of tapping into the modern equivalent of Satanic panic), is to describe it as a film that could have easily been put out by Dark Castle at the turn of the 21st century. The big difference is that Dark Castle would have delivered some much better production design and visuals, thrown around some blood and fun scares, and not made the mistake of thinking the silly premise could be turned into something serious.
The plot is quite simple to summarise. A family buy a boat, and that boat turns out to be, well, not very nice. It may even have an evil spirit on it. As the family are taken further out to sea, things get more dangerous. That's all you need to know. Oh, there's also some tension, of course, between the husband and wife, because one partner had an affair.
I can only assume that the script, by Anthony Jaswinski, seemed like something that might work better when adapted to screen. Or maybe those involved were just big fans of The Shallows (also written by Jaswinski). I can't think of any other reason for both Gary Oldman and Emily Mortimer to sign on for this. I really like both actors, but they are unable to do anything here to outweigh the dire material. Maybe they both had large, unexpected, bills that needed paid. People do what they have to do for a decent payday. And I am not saying that they are bad here, just to clarify, I am just saying that they're unable to polish this turd.
Others acting alongside Oldman and Mortimer are Stefanie Scott and Chloe Perrin (playing their daughters, Lindsey and Mary), Owen Teague, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Jennifer Esposito. Teague and Garcia-Rulfo are wasted, at least Scott and Perrin get one or two decent moments between them, and Esposito feels like a character drafted in from a more straightforward cop thriller flick.
Mary is more annoying for the fact that it could easily have been something pleasantly surprising and fun. But that would have meant someone at the helm who wanted to show that they cared about the thing. Director Michael Goi doesn't want to do that. He instead just meanders from one moment of melodrama to the next, occasionally stopping for a bit of horrible CGI to shake up one of the main characters, and keeps heading towards an ending that is as bad as everything else that precedes it. Although most of the problems stem from the script, a bit of restructuring and some time spent working on the overall tone could have made this less of an endurance test. The runtime is only 84 minutes, yet it feels like it goes on so much longer than that.
3/10
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