HAIL MARY: Full Of Horror

When I read the description for this movie I didn’t quite know what to expect, “a genre-bending retelling of the Mary and Joseph story,” left me with questions. How would it be retold? Does it need to be retold? How did they get the rights to that book? So many questions. The only way I was going to answer any of them was to watch it, see what happens, and hope for the best. That’s exactly what I did and I have to say, it was kind of a fun ride.

The film opens when we meet Baal, played brilliantly by Jack Huston, getting picked up by a long-haul truck driver. We learn very early that he’s on a mission and he will let literally nothing stand in his way. Like everyone else who comes in contact with Baal, it doesn’t end well. Meanwhile Maria (Natalia del Riego) is working in a field when she discovers she’s pregnant which is odd because she’s a total virgin. Soon Ball shows up to disrupt things and Maria realizes she’s in trouble and bolts, headed to America.

Maria’s journey is long and hard and she’s literally at the end of her rope when she spots Jose (Benny Emmanuel), a carpenter who is about to get off work for the day. Maria hides herself in the bed of Jose’s truck and after some convincing he agrees to help her get to America. All of this had us on a collision course with a third act that is equal parts surprising and wild.

What Hail Mary got right

I love the casting in this movie, everyone plays it straight in the middle of a horror film based on a very familiar story. It was something I wasn’t expecting. The leads were spot on and it was never more apparent than in the performance by Jack Huston. His Baal was diabolical and all of the best horror moments came from him and his character. He really nailed the c*cky demon who only cared about his mission. Baal didn’t care about anything or anyone else.

They got the horror right. It had very uncomfortable moments and gross moments and tense moments and shocking moments, basically all the best horror moments. Rosemary Rodriguez really set a consistent tone full of ups and downs and some shocks that I won’t ruin here but (I’m making that face like the cringing emoji) it was fantastic. I was never fully scared but I definitely squirmed more than a few times. She did a fantastic job in the director’s chair, yet again.

Have I talked about the music yet? This film had some very impressive song choices, from the opening scene it continued to surprise me with what song would pop up. It had a great score to accompany the song choices don’t get me wrong but really as a fan of music, it was the songs that grabbed my attention, that made me perk up. What made me say, okay, this is an unexpected choice. I loved it.

What Hail Mary got wrong

The timeline of events in the movie is a bit messy. There are some lines of dialogue that make it seem like they meant for the baby to cook a full nine months but as the film itself progresses it isn’t clear. In fact, I remember saying to myself about halfway through, “she needs to turn down the temperature in her oven or she’ll have an over-done baby.” Which is fine, she’s supposedly carrying the second coming but the editing itself made it feel like the baby was growing exceptionally fast. It seemed like we had only witnessed a couple of weeks but they insisted it was all forty.

I asked myself during this movie if we even needed it to be a modern retelling of that tale. I’m not sure that we did, the story could have stood on its own as a piece of horror and survival without the oldest references known to man. Call the movie “Maria” and just let it ride. Hail Mary works fine as that retelling but it wasn’t necessary.

The last thing I want to mention isn’t something they got wrong per se but it was something that bugged me after I thought about it for a minute. Without ruining what happens, the film very abruptly ends. No wrap-up, no one month later, just leaves us hanging wondering to ourselves, “Well, what are they going to do now?” It’s a fine ending, this is me being needy and wanting to nitpick (as I do) about something that I have no control over. Will I live? Of course, I will but I really wanted to know.

Conclusion

Hail Mary is full of twists and turns, and although it didn’t really keep me guessing, it did make sure I stuck around for the ending to see how it all resolved. That said, this movie was definitely a fun ride and I do highly recommend it. The Baal story was wrapped up nicely, it was that other moment that I have questions about.

As I very often do I want to encourage you to support independent cinema, this is another indie film that people need to see and tell their friends and family about. Clearly, a lot of heart and effort went into making this movie, and all of it showed on screen. So find a when and a where to watch it, then execute.

This movie won’t change the cinema landscape but it is a fun and quick horror story that tells us a tale that we all know in a completely new and inventive way. That doesn’t happen very often in the movies anymore, if we know the story, most of the time we just know the story. The horror is on point and Baal deserves an entire series of movies just to have him poking around the world causing trouble. For those reasons, I say that you really need to watch this film.

Hail Mary was released on March 13, 2023!

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