“Mary Had a Little Lamb” (2023) is a horror film from the United Kingdom and apparently continues a trend of British budget, quick turn over horror movies that riff on children’s nursery rhymes such as “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey” (2023), “The Mean One” and “Three Blind Mice” (2023). Because the rhymes are in the public domain, they are ripe for exploitation. It takes place in the present day. Mary (Christine Ann Nyland) is a deranged, middle-aged woman living with a homicidal sheepman Lamb (Gaston Alexander), who does her bidding. Unsuspecting lost hikers who come to their cottage in the woods soon regret it. Carla (May Kelly, who resembles Lindsay Lohan), a true crime, cold case radio broadcaster, is desperate for a fresh story lest her boss, Pete (Mark Sears), fire her and her team, so she decides to investigate the hikers’ disappearance, but will she and her team survive their research road trip to the woods?
“Mary Had a Little Lamb” is at its best when it explores the coworkers’ dynamic. It feels like a tame, boring counterpart to “X” (2022). Being under pressure brings out the worse in Carla, who turns into a conniving, morally bankrupt, opportunist willing to sell out anyone to save her job. This desperate turn puts her team in danger. Her team is huge. No wonder Pete wants to fire them. Producers Mona (Gillian Broderick) and Ray (Harry Boxley, who also wrote the screenplay) banter with Mona as the profane, tell-it-like-it-is killjoy to Ray’s whistful dreamer. There is Liz (Danielle Scott) and Matt (Rob Kirley), the social media team, who make out like teenagers. Shelley (Charlie Esquer), whose duties are unclear other than assisting Pete, is the most normal one in the bunch, and she has asthma, which carries the same weight as Chekhov’s gun in a horror movie.
“Mary Had a Little Lamb” is as serious as a heart attack instead of playing with the obvious humor of referencing the Massachusetts nineteenth century nursery rhyme. To be fair, if the moral of the rhyme is how love affects Mary’s little lamb, this story teaches a similar lesson. If a horror movie is going to play it straight, it must be superb on every level, and it is not. The story contains a lot of promising elements: true crime reporting ethics and the damaging cycle of abuse, but these elements never make a cohesive whole. If Mary had turned the tables on Carla and punished the true crimers for their ambition, at least there would be a thorough moral to the story. Despite eavesdropping, Mary never figures out that her houseguests are liars willing to exploit her hospitality. Mary’s tragic backstory is such a downer that it arrests any potential for enjoyment. There is never a satisfactory explanation for the existence of the sheepman, so it does feel random and exploitative, but not in a fun way. The film does not deliver any angry bleating until seventy-six minutes in with three minutes left until the end. It is better for a movie to be so bad that it is good. The film becomes dull.
If “Mary Had a Little Lamb” had some points in its favor. Broderick, who was in “Alive” (2023), was a standout, but her character’s name does not get referenced until it is no longer germane to the proceedings. The acting is decent, but the accents are hard to pin down. They sound as if they are British, Scottish, or American, but no actor maintained it for long, and the characters’ country origin did not seem necessary to move the story forward. The murder order does not go as expected. The location is evocative and foreboding, but which country are we in? No idea though when the news references the missing hikers, the American embassy is mentioned, but if that detail ended up on the cutting room floor, it would not matter. The scenes set in the woods showed promise with some great tracking shots, but it gets abandoned for handheld, shaky cam. Unfortunately, most of the film is so dark that it will be challenging for any viewer to discern what is happening, which will not help them stay invested in the film; however “Game of Thrones” had similar issues. It is not worth watching the movie, but the denouement implies a redemption arc. Carla delivers a rousing read of Mary and her treatment of the sheepman, which suggests that by the end, Carla has recovered some of her original integrity in caring about the real story instead of fabricating a story for ratings.
If “Mary Had a Little Lamb” gets sued for false advertising, that would be fair because Lamb (Gaston Alexander) is catfishing. Lamb is thirty-three years old and has been a sheepman for some time. If you decide to watch this movie despite reading this review, Lamb looks like a demented, murderous man who just likes putting on an enormous costume sheep head or a furry who has substituted slashing for sex, but no, the story confirms that he is in fact a person who looks like a lamb without elaborating on how that genetically happened. Mary is not a backwoods Dr. Moreau, and Lamb does not talk. He does roar. And in another disappointing turn, other than his size and strength, Lamb requires tools to kill, and Lamb spent his childhood watching “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974). His aesthetic choices and weapons emulate Leatherface, and it further enervates the pacing because if you are familiar with Leatherface, you can anticipate how Sheepface will behave.
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After getting raped as a teenager, Mary gave birth to Sheepface, who was apparently a normal boy. Because of her unresolved trauma, she encourages his animalistic behavior and turns him into a monster so he would protect her. This plot twist feels like a stretch since a man raped her. Is this a cross between “Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984) and “Lamb” (2021), which I have not seen. I’m not thrilled at the idea of making a rape survivor and her child into villains even if they are sympathetic, but less so considering the story was underdeveloped.
“Mary Had a Little Lamb” is supposed to be a dumb, slasher film so I’m devoting too much thought to the plot. Um, if Sheepface was initially raised like any child before people ridiculed him, then would not people remember Mary and her son and suspect them for being responsible for all the missing people? Carla did not even know about Sheepface and suspected her immediately. The scratched-out photographs were a nice touch.
And um, how did Mary and Sheepface become cannibals? Mary’s father was a victim blaming asshole who used his daughter’s sexuality to shame her, but becoming a cannibal feels abrupt. Sure she may train her son to kill people, but eat them! That seems a bit much. Boxley needed to add a throwaway line that because she did not want to interact with people, they adjusted their diet. Also sheep are herbivores so if he resembles one, would not he have similar dietary restrictions? While I’m fine with Carla killing Mary, it may be a bad long-term move because um, who is going to stop Sheepface? No one wants a sequel. Also the biggest plot twist was Mona showing concern once she stumbles on Sheepface. It was a missed opportunity to see Sheepface react to a caring, normal human being.
