Bloody Mary folklore in popular culture

An early 20th century Halloween greeting card showing Bloody Mary

Both folk and urban legends have served as inspiration for a number of depictions of Bloody Mary, a ghost, phantom or spirit conjured to reveal the future;[1] these are especially prevalent in films and television shows dealing with the supernatural.

Specific cultural references

Specific reference to Bloody Mary are made in the following:

Film

Stage

Television

  • A season two episode of Charmed ("Chick Flick") involves a demon who makes killers from different horror movies come to life. One of these killers is Bloody Mary.[4]
  • In the Ghost Whisperer TV series' third season, an episode ("Don't Try This at Home") involves the Bloody Mary legend.
  • Supernatural, the paranormal TV series, had an episode titled "Bloody Mary" during its first season, involving a ghost that attacked those who were looking into a mirror while her name was repeated, although she was only capable of "leaping" into mirrors within a certain range of the mirror that she killed herself in front of. In the course of the investigation, it is revealed that the original "Bloody Mary" was an aspiring actress who was found dead in front of her mirror of an apparent suicide, but she wrote the first few letters of a name on the glass before she died, with the investigating detectives noting that Mary was said to be having an affair with a doctor, speculating that he was the actual killer, but there was no actual evidence to prove that theory. Due to her death, Mary's ghost would only attack people who looked in a mirror while her name was being invoked- whether they were the ones who said her name or not- if they had some secret relating to their role in another's death, with the protagonists seeking to stop Mary as she cannot distinguish between a man killing his wife and disguising it as a suicide or a young woman whose obsessive boyfriend killed himself because she left him.
  • "Syzygy", an episode of The X-Files, concerns her legend.[5]

Video games

Other

References and notes

  1. Bloody Mary at Urban Legends; About Urban Legends website;
  2. 1 2 Pulliam, June; Fonseca, Anthony (26 September 2016). Ghosts in Popular Culture and Legend. ABC-CLIO. p. 35. ISBN 1440834911. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  3. Bevil, Dewayne (2008-09-25). "Universal crafts Bloody Mary bio for Halloween Horror Nights". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on 2008-09-30. Retrieved 2008-10-14.
  4. Charmed episode; TV.COM
  5. Lowry, Brian (1996). Trust No One: The Official Guide to the X-Files. Harper Prism. ISBN 0-06-105353-8.
  6. Tito, Greg (2014-04-08). "The Wolf Among Us Episode 3: A Crooked Mile Review - Yes!". Escapist. Retrieved 2014-04-08.
  7. The Bloody Mary Show at YouTube.
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