Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975) Horror Vampire

Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975) - Christina Ferrare probably known as a Max Factor spokesperson a former fashion model she has worked in TV and fashion. Later she might be seen for her working as a frequent guest on the Oprah cable TV network cooking and sharing recipes.In this early work which she has many credits on IMDB; she stars as Mary a vampire traveling through Mexico struggling to find love and success while still meeting her need for blood. It is a strange tale where she has managed for many years to survive on her own as a painter of some notoriety while at the same time leaving a trail of bodies drained of blood. The turning point for Mary is when she meets Ben (David Young) a charming hitchhiker who is easy to fall for. Now she must balance the desire for blood with the counter desire to not eat her lover. After the first scene of there meeting the film gives us the goods on Mary, we see her turning her flirting charms on a man she has picked up in a bar.  She drugs the victim with a dose of something she keeps in a locket around her neck. She stealth-fully slips it into his drink and waits for it to takes effect. Then with a pin knife she keeps her hair up with she deftly punctures his jugular and drinks her fill.
  Director Juan Lopez Moctezuma does some interesting stuff with a story by Don Henderson, Malcolm Marmorstein and Don Rico even though there is not a lot in it. The story is pretty basic, we join the main character after she has established her life as some what successful artist, who uses already has a method of killing and drinking that has worked for her. There could be another story here that would also be interesting enough for a movie. I thought of the film "Let the Right One In", where the vampire creature was an 11 year old looking creature. She had to deal with the logistics her underdeveloped body created for her. I kept thinking that the more interesting time of Mary's life must have been her tween to teen years for Mary when her father had first left. Did she always need to drink blood and if so did her Father supply her? How did she cope when he was gone? When her Dad realized he could not stay was it because she was still not infected with this form of vampirism and his desire to drink was too great to stay around his still normal daughter? What was it like to develop the need? How did she survive in those early years before becoming a beautiful woman? Unfortunately this is not that story but instead the story of when she was almost found out.
  More though and this was indeed interesting it is a look into a time in Mary's life when she chose to love knowing that the cost would put her at risk. When she meets Ben and they become lovers the "seduce and kill" method she had been using to feed becomes much more difficult. Its just hard to explain to your partner that you need to leave alone for several hours every week or so. Also it changed her mobility and she was more stationary in the time of the film, shrinking the hunting grounds and making the similar deaths of the victims more noticeable to the police. So this could be the story of how love doomed Mary, but it is even more than that. At around this time Mary is stalked by a masked man in a green Mustang who kills and feeds in a similar was. This only makes the trail for the police more obvious and creates a climax that can be guessed. Ferrare does a very good job capturing the internal struggle as her life pattern sort of falls apart. She is in anguish over the desire to feed but not wanting to lose her love to that need. Young is a bit cardboard as the man in her life but has his own issues as they stay together.
  The police on Inspector Cosgrove (Arthur Hansel) of the FBI on loan to the Mexican Lieutenant Pons (Enrique Lucero) are smart enough to see that Ben has been around the locations of most of the murders. In an act of amazing sexism they never connect Mary in the same way but focus on the American drifter as their main suspect. He was on the beach when a fisherman died. He was in the town where the female hitchhiker was killed and where someone killed the morgue worker. He was at an art exhibit of Mary's work when Greta (Helena Rojo) was killed and drained of blood. Still Mary is not the focus but instead her boyfriend. Speaking of Greta, it was such a heartfelt death in this film porttrayed with excellent warmth by the two actresses. She for years longed for love with Mary and sent Ben out from the party to buy tequila in order to get Mary alone. Mary upset that Ben vanished thought he might have abandoned her and in her dismay is comforted by Greta. As Greta expresses her love for Mary with a kiss Mary for the first time gives into desire and feeds from someone she knows. It really is so well done by Ferrare and Rojo and a crucial turning point in the film.
 This connection is something even the dumbest of police can't miss, but unfortunately for Ben they are blind to the idea a woman could be the killer.  When the police decide to tail Ben the third act unfolds rather quickly. Mary also under that surveillance needs to feed but is hard pressed to find a time when she can. She is oh so tempted as Ben sleeps next to her but instead attempts to sneak out. All kinds of crazy happens from here on out as Ben chases after Mary and masked killer is hot on her heels, with that the cops are also chasing. Up into the hills of Mexico where the masked killer is revealed and some of the story behind Mary's condition is heard. In the end though this can not truly be anything but a tragedy. I won't spoil it since it is a more rare vampire story and many of you might want to see it. It is not the greatest of films but I say worth recommending for its unque take on the genre.
Odds and ends
 - Mary's art was painted by Rosa Rosenberg
 - The director went on after this film to make a couple other films I know, the incredibly screamy and strange "Alucarda" and "The Mansion of Madness"
 - One of the victims actress Susana Kamini plays a main character in Alucarda.
 - The masked killer ends up being one of the greatest character actors in history John Carridine, he really is a bit player in that we only see his face in the last sequence and thus I suspect he was hired for his name.
  - The copy I have of the film comes with both a 3D and normal version of the film. Neither of the versions are widescreen and the 3D version was too dark to enjoy.
 - Although in the scenes where she connects with other actors, Ferrare's portrayal is solid there are other times where she has to be the cold killer. In some ways this makes sense. She is a predator when she needs to feed but still wants to have another connected life when the desire is not so great. Still in the last act the way she seems almost helpless as she is chased by the masked killer seems really out of place.

The Babysitter (1969) Drama Sleaze

The Babysitter (1969) - This film came from the "Drive-In Cult Classics Vol 3" and is a sleazy little story of a man having a romantic relationship with the babysitter but it has a weird plot that is so much more than that, not quite a morality tale but certainly not the standard pulp either. The story centers around Babysitter Candy Wilson (Patricia Wymer) and the father of her charge George Maxwell (George E. Carey). George is married to Edith (Anne Bellamy) who plays the bitchy wife to perfection. Not meaning to create stereotypes here but the trope of "bitchy wife" in film is well establish and the character of Edith is written well for said trope. She is all about schedule and routine and constantly irritating in her pursuit to get George to do what she wants. Both sort of middle aged they have a small baby from a night of drunken love making that Edith now resents. (The love making without protection not the child.) They hire a baby sitter since there college aged daughter will not be home until the next day. This is the old days so the agency send candy a late teens early twenties hippie girl. George and Edith are portrayed as a couple going through the motions in what over the years has turned into a loveless marriage.
  Edith is trying to get out to socialize with local politicians and move her husband up the social status ladder. George is a District Attorney and she always wants more for him even though he seems happy with his job. He frankly is bored with his life, same old dinners and bridge nights, a wife who seems to nag constantly it is all getting old for him and he is prime for a dalliance.  So they hire Candy from a local agency to watch the little one. She is a relaxed hippie girl, doe eyed and innocent sounding when she is being shown around the house. When the couple leaves she immediately gets on the phone and invite a bunch of friends over to play music, smoke weed and dance in the basement playroom. It seems to be a groovy time with rock music by a full band and girls dancing around them. When the girls freed by the music remove their clothes you understand this is 1969 and didn't all the girls take their clothes off all the time? Okay this is some of the sleaze of this film and it is only the early return by the Maxwells that breaks the party up. Not while Edith heads to bed George is tasked to take Candy home. He sees the mess that the group made in the basement and it will ave to be a topic of conversation on the ride.
  Oh but does it turn there as Candy coolly lets it be known that the looks George is giving her are alright. In fact she just might be into exploring what it would be like to fool around with an older man. She very bluntly asks him about his relationship with his wife. They have some pretty cool banter about how the foods kids eat in 1969, tacos and hotdogs make them so cool and carefree; and George gets to ask. What are you some kind of hippie or something?
Candy says "I only know I want to laugh. I want to have fun. I want to feel things. I want to be free." George resists this first night but when Candy comes to his house the next day to swim in his pool all bets are off. They frolics topless and kiss leading to some afternoon lovemaking. Candy leaves the spent and sleeping man in his bed to be found by his wife who complains about him sleeping away the afternoon. So the initial deed is done and for George it is a refreshing change. The next two weeks will be repeated hook ups with the younger woman while also living the mundane events that make up his life with Edith. When with his wife we see through memory flashes that all he can do is think of Candy. The tension between he and his wife of course grows. He is only present in their life together but his mind is always on the hot young number he is seeing on the side.

  This is George's moral dilemma, he sees that the life he has is not the one he wants. He has broken his vows and experienced another relationship that is physical and fun and find himself torn between his obligations and his desires.  At this point it should be noted that this film is really not a fair representation of an affair. This film written by our lead actor is more of the ideal fantasy of an affair. George gets to play with a young beautiful woman but there are no expectations from this. Candy could be a sex doll for the number of requirements she has. She really just is having fun, sure she "digs" George but she will be able to walk away with no strings attached as soon as anyone finds out. The only consequences for her is having to find a new guy. This fantasy woman for George is a real flaw in the film, he never has to make the hard choices of two relationships with equal expectations. Candy is more the middle aged man's dream girl when it comes to infidelity which I suppose makes her so easy to get involved with. Still the lack of reality is clear and even when the shit hits the fan the consequences are strangely blunted.

  The secondary story has to do with George's job as the DA. He is on a high profile case where a biker is on trial for killing a woman. It was a brutal crime and there really is no doubt that he will be found guilty. In jail and awaiting trial, his girlfriend is desperate to find a way to get him out. Julie Freeman (Kathy Williams) knows George's daughter Joan (Sheri Jackson) from high school (or college?) and is going to blackmail him into throwing the case. How? By exposing a secret about Joan, that she is a lesbian. She gets in touch with Joan and comes to swim at the pool, the same day George and Candy have their first afternoon together. She intends to get pictures of Joan and her girlfriend in compromising positions, but never quite can get a good shot with her camera. When she pretends to leave the two girls leave the house and Candy arrives to find George. Julie stumbles upon them while looking out an upstairs window and now has the opportunity to get pictures of their afternoon.
  Those pictures compromise George's situation, he can be exposed at any moment. Julie insists that if he wants to keep his tryst secret he had better throw the case against her boyfriend. So what will George do, let a killer walk or let his affair become public? George being a product of the forties does the right thing and gets the conviction. The conclusion as mentioned earlier really leads toward this film being a immature fantasy instead of a morality tale. George finds out where Julie lives and Candy and her musician guys go there and rough Julie up until she gives up the negatives. So not only is the ideal lover without complication, she also solves any problems that might arise from her involvement. Unfortunately the photos from those negatives were already sent to George's boss, he comes in and his boss in true fantasy form lets him off the hook. He also suggests that George hurries home to intercept the postman so his wife never finds out. Really no work consequences at all? He get home and his wife is sitting at the dining room table looking at her set of photos. We see George's shoulders slump, defeat creeps into his face. His wife looks up and disappointment remarkably turns to understanding and she utters the one line that completely releases George from responsibility. "I guess we have been playing too much bridge." Wow, completely off the hook.
  So overall this is not a horrible film, sure the production values were pretty poor and the message of the plot is just awful. But it is also so much a reflection of the male psyche, the desire o be attractive and desired. The hope for that connection to an attractive younger woman. The fantasy that an affair could happen and there would be not consequences. Of course today there are websites like the website Ashley Madison where creating the hookup that George had, are just a few clicks away. Sure finding someone attractive and half your age might be a long shot on the site but the no strings attached affair is enabled online. This pre-Internet fantasy leaves the viewer a bit cheated though, it just is pulp if there are no consequences. The final shot with Candy dancing with a young guy show no ill effects for her either, she leans in and whispers to him, " I really dig you man." This film ends up being and hour and a half version of "No harm, No foul".
Rating (4.5) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than other.