The Last Thing Mary Saw
“The Last Thing Mary Saw” feels like a film that should already exist; I certainly feel as though I’ve seen it before. But with such movies, how does it present the things you’ve seen before, or feel familiar- that’s the key to how a film like Edoardo Vitaletti’s works, and his film works fairly well.
We begin after a tragedy in 1843 New York. The elders in the community are trying to get to the bottom of things, and the only witness is Mary (Stefanie Scott), one of the daughters in the family. When she is found, however, her eyes have blood coming from them. The matriarch of the family has died, and it feels as though dark forces have been at work in this devoutly religious household. As Mary tells the story, we come to get the fuller picture of this family’s demise, and whether or not something otherworldly might have been in play.
If one watches this and thinks of “The Witch,” I understand that. Religious fervor and isolation are common elements, even if “The Last Thing Mary Saw” is set in the mid-19th Century. I’d like to say there is plenty of fertile ground in this setting, the way religion was practiced at the time, and the distrust of women for horror, but after having seen these two films, and thinking about something like The Crucible, I’m not sure if I agree with that. Whether it’s the Salem Witch Trials or you’re working in something truly supernatural, a lot of the thematic beats feel familiar and well-worn. Certainly, that isn’t to say actors and writers and directors cannot expand upon those basic ideas- and I think Vitaletti does that here- but how far one can take them might be a bit limited.
Vitaletti does a wonderful job with mood and atmosphere in this film. One of the things I love about a setting like this is that, without contemporary lighting, shadows play really well on screen, and cinematographer David Kruta uses that very well in his visual scheme here. The scenes of interrogation early on, two people talking by a tree, and the final act of the film in general capture a feeling of unrest that I always enjoy seeing come alive with the right lighting, and the film succeeds at that.
From a narrative standpoint, the film is not quite as solid as its technical qualities are. One thing that does work is Mary as a narrator, and the main character of the film, whether it’s the dynamic she has with a house maid in Eleanor (Isabelle Fuhrman), or the arrival of a stranger (played by Rory Culkin) that makes the question what she’s believed for so long. By the time the film reaches its climax, however, it’s a compelling, suspenseful watch, with an ending that makes us think that there might be more involved. “The Last Thing Mary Saw” has a number of familiar elements, but how they’re put together is what matters, and the result is an engaging, sometimes methodical thriller.
