The Last Thing Mary Saw debuted at the Fantasia International Film Festival, and will stream on Shudder in early 2022.
The Last Thing Mary Saw is not just the title of writer/director Edoardo Vitaletti’s debut feature; it’s also a horrid promise to his audience. In this grim but intriguing folk horror offering, making its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival, doom is certain, but the path to it is littered with dark treasures. Unfortunately, the subdued romance at its center might not be enough to keep some horror fans trudging along this twisted journey.
The Last Thing Mary Saw picks up in a brutal winter in 1843 Southold, New York. The weather is bitingly cold. The land is grey, and the God-fearing folk are merciless. So, when it’s uncovered that maiden Mary (Stefanie Scott of Insidious: Chapter 3) is in a lesbian relationship with her family’s maid (Orphan star Isabelle Fuhrman), the punishments come swift and painful. Still, their love won’t be deterred by Mary’s pious parents or even by her scowling crone of a grandmother (a terrifically terrifying Judith Roberts). Forming a shaky alliance with a wounded guard (P.J. Sosko), these besotted women plot for freedom and vengeance. However, from Mary’s introduction — hell, from the title — Vitaletti assures only pain will be their reward.
Vitaletti begins his film near the end of Mary’s journey. Bound, bleeding, and blindfolded, she is brought before a band of rifle-carrying men, who whisper fearfully that she is ruled by the devil himself. But these men will not shape her narrative. In flashbacks, the young woman unfurls what led her to this pitiable place, along the way detouring into disturbing folklore from a strange book.
Despite dealing in torture, murder, and forbidden romance, the tone is devotedly restrained. Even in moments of great betrayal and horror, the cast speaks in church whispers, their faces often a stone mask of grim judgement. Little surprise, then, that this Shudder acquisition is already drawing comparisons to Robert Eggers’ critically heralded period piece The Witch. The Last Thing Mary Saw shares its stern tone, slow pace, and preference for an off-kilter score. Percussion plays like footsteps racing down winding staircases. Wind instruments suggest the cracks of a drafty house where there is always a spying eye or eavesdropping ear eager to catch the lovers in the act viewed by the devout as an abomination. However, the muted color palette that underscored The Witch’s threat of death is traded here for warmer hues that bring lantern light alive on blushing lips, bared flesh, and blood. Yellow seeps through the film, like the stain of age creeping across the pages of an ancient book. Thus, the color palette underscores not only Mary’s passion for Eleanor, but also how her fate is determined from the moment we meet her. The ink already dried.
Through these visuals and a claustrophobic setting of a remote and inescapable house, Vitaletti creates a slow-burn tension that explodes across a clunky yet fascinating climax. Where The Witch had its sinister Black Phillip as a harbinger of doom, The Last Thing Mary Saw offers an eerie intruder (Rory Culkin), who crashes a family ritual with his dark tales, darker demands, and a dangerous glint in his eyes. After many scenes of hushed tones and hidden tenderness, his brashness and bold tongue strikes like a match to the gunpowder. While Fuhrman and Scott shoulder the plot and emotional through line of the film, Culkin runs away with it in his brief but powerful part. With a sickly smile and a steady stare, he warns that a world beyond this farm may not be any better. It’s easy to believe him. But should it be so easy to steal this film?
Period pieces about lesbians have been a bit of a trend lately, boasting such heralded titles as Carol, The Handmaiden, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Favourite, and even Fear Street: Part 3: 1666. Regrettably, The Last Thing Mary Saw can’t stand up to its celebrated sisters because its romance falls flat. Often in such films, the requisite period costumes make even the least bit of exposed skin feel like an illicit thrill. Yet despite the fiercely puritanical setting, the reveals here feel banal, speaking to familiarity, not lust. The sight of the lovers lounging together in a hideaway lacks longing, while their love scene — though presenting a flurry of kisses — feels oddly chaste. When these leading ladies come alive, it’s not in love, but in their fury. Fuhrman’s dark eyes flicker with unapologetic wrath. Scott’s lips curl into a vicious smile, her voice becoming almost giddy in anticipated victory. But when their attention is on each other, it just feels like, well, acting. Regrettably, this lackluster chemistry radically fails to ground the stakes of the story. So rather than frightening or exhilarating, the movie is more vaguely spooky and a bit snoozy until its thrillingly twisted conclusion.
