''Bloody Mallory'' is a 2002 film directed by

Julien Magnat Julien Magnat is a film and television screenwriter and director. He is best known for '' Bloody Mallory'' (2002) and '' Faces In The Crowd'' (2010). __TOC__ Life and career Magnat was born in Ardèche, France. He earned an international bacca ...

at his

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

, and written by Magnat and Stéphane Kazandjian. The film stars

Olivia Bonamy Olivia Bonamy (born 21 September 1972) is a French actress. She is best known for her appearances in the films '' Jefferson in Paris'', Jacques Audiard's '' Read My Lips'', the thriller '' Ils'' and '' Le ciel, les oiseaux et ta mère''. Biogr ...

, Adrià Collado, Jeffrey Ribier, Laurent Spielvogel,

Valentina Vargas Valentina Vargas (born December 31, 1964) is a Chilean actress. She began, and spent most of her career working in France. Biography Vargas began her career in the dramatic arts by joining the workshop of Tania Balaschova in Paris and later at ...

Julien Boisselier Julien Boisselier (born 26 May 1970) is a French actor. Life and career Boisselier was born and raised in Nantes before moving to Paris to study comedy at Le Cours Florent. He dated acclaimed French actress Mélanie Laurent, though the two e ...

, and Thylda Barès. The film's score was composed by

Kenji Kawai is a Japanese music composer and arranger. Known as one of the biggest names in the soundtrack world, he has worked on a wide range of mixed media productions, including anime, TV shows, films and video games. Among his credits are Toei's Kame ...

. The film itself is a mix of horror,

action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

, and

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

in a style highly reminiscent of American television shows such as ''

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' is an American supernatural fiction, supernatural drama television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon. It is based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film), 1992 film of the same name, also written by W ...

'' and '' Xena: Warrior Princess''.

Plot

Mallory (Bonamy) is the head of an elite government-run strike force dedicated to combating the

supernatural Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...

. Her team includes the

drag queen A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part o ...

Vena Cava (Ribier), an

explosives An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

expert; a

mute Muteness is a speech disorder in which a person lacks the ability to speak. Mute or the Mute may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Mute'' (2005 film), a short film by Melissa Joan Hart * ''Mute'' (2018 film), a scien ...

, pre-teen

telepath Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W ...

capable of possessing others named Talking Tina (Barès); and an armed governmental agent named Durand (Perkins-Lyautey). They are dispatched to protect a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

from an assault by a pack of

undead The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by super ...

monsters when they are attacked by an unknown assailant. The battle leaves Durand dead, Vena Cava injured, and Tina in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

. Simultaneously, the newly elected

pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

(Spielvogel) is kidnapped by strange, masked attackers who resist the bullets of the pope's bodyguards. Mallory is approached to rescue the pope, a job she reluctantly accepts when she realizes there may be a connection between her team's assailant and the pope's kidnappers. Tracking the kidnappers to a pocket

dimension In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a Space (mathematics), mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any Point (geometry), point within it. Thus, a Line (geometry), lin ...

containing an entire village that had vanished off the map several years earlier, Mallory and her team are joined by Père Carras (Collado), a priest trained in the martial arts and one of the bodyguards present at the time of the pope's kidnapping. Their search for the pope eventually leads to Lady Valentine (Vargas), a centuries-old

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...

who survived being beheaded during the French Revolution, and her mission to summon

Abaddon The Hebrew term Abaddon ( he, אֲבַדּוֹן ''’Ăḇaddōn'', meaning "destruction", "doom"), and its Greek equivalent Apollyon ( grc-koi, Ἀπολλύων, ''Apollúōn'' meaning "Destroyer") appear in the Bible as both a place of de ...

, a

fallen angel In the Abrahamic religions, fallen angels are angels who were expelled from heaven. The literal term "fallen angel" never appears in any Abrahamic religious texts, but is used to describe angels cast out of heaven"Mehdi Azaiez, Gabriel Said R ...

that will cover the world in darkness.

Casting

According to interviews present on the Region 1 DVD, Valentina Vargas was reluctant to appear in the film, but strong campaigning by director Magnat convinced her to sign on.

Release

''Bloody Mallory'' was released in France on 17 July 2002. It was released in the United States in the second quarter of 2004.

Influence and references

Magnat has admitted to being highly influenced by the visual style and hyper-reality of

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

and

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

. This influence is most apparent during the final scenes of the first battle of the film between Mallory and the undead attacking the church. Mallory's appearance, especially her bright red hair and revealing uniform, is highly reminiscent of the main character in the film ''

Run Lola Run ''Run Lola Run'' (german: Lola rennt}, lit. "Lola Runs") is a 1998 German experimental thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer. The story follows a woman named Lola (Franka Potente) who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutschmarks in twenty min ...

.'' The ''

Necronomicon The ', also referred to as the ''Book of the Dead'', or under a purported original Arabic title of ', is a fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first menti ...

'', a work featured in the horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, is referenced several times as if it were a legal document, including the citing of paragraphs and sub-sections relating to the conditions of summoning a demon. A vindictive living doll from a 1963 episode of the ''Twilight Zone'' is called Talky Tina.

References

External links

* * * {{Amg movie, 271446, Bloody Mallory 2002 films French action comedy films 2000s French-language films 2000s action horror films 2002 comedy horror films 2000s action comedy films LGBT-related superhero films French superhero films 2000s superhero films Superheroine films French films about revenge 2002 directorial debut films 2002 LGBT-related films 2000s exploitation films 2000s French films