‘The Last Thing Mary Saw’ Review: Sin and the Supernatural in Early 19th-Century New York

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There have been plenty of horror films set in the Old West and the Old South, as well as eras of religious inquisition in the Old World. “The Last Thing Mary Saw” goes where relatively few have gon…

There have been plenty of horror films set in the Old West and the Old South, as well as eras of religious inquisition in the Old World. “” goes where relatively few have gone before, however, by taking place in the still-new United States’ “civilized” rural East, where an industrial age had yet to penetrate and mores remained none too distant from the earliest European settlers’ harsh Puritanism.

An opening quote from John Calvin sets the stern tenor as we meet the titular figure , eyes bleeding behind a blindfold, being interrogated by a constable in Long Island hamlet Southold’s gaolhouse in 1843. She is accused of murder, witchery, or both, and his terrified deputies train shotguns at the teen despite her evident helplessness.

Mary’s fearful parents turn to the clan’s fearsome matriarch for “intervention,” which results in a cruel regime of punitive “corrections” for the two young women. Its aim seems less penitential than sadistic, with potentially crippling effects familiar to the estate’s armed guard , who couldn’t leave his post if he tried.

“The Last Thing Mary Saw” is perhaps too sparing with its occult aspects, which intrigue more than they successfully alarm; we never really do find out just what that “evil” book is capable of, or where it came from. Vitaletti’s storytelling, and ability to drum up tension or scares, is less potent here than his attention to evoking a general climate of close-minded religious hypocrisy.

 

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