Directed by Jason Arber and written by Harry Boxley, Mary Had A Little Lamb has a title scene that looks promisingly bloody; blood-dripping letters morphing onto a similarly gory background? Gimme. The film begins with a girl and boy held captive, Texas Chainsaw-style. The boy is swiftly snuffed out and cut up for dinner. Yummers. Witnessing this,the girl does a runner, but Mom Mary and son (33 year-old monster/sheep-headed werewolf-type, played by Gaston Alexander, who spends most of his time shackled in an upstairs bedroom when he’s not ‘hunting’ and keeping poor Mary safe) soon run her to ground. A grisly fate indeed.

Carla (May Kelly) runs a low-key radio show (along with a small motley crew), called Cara’s Cold Cases. As the name suggests, it centres around old, unsolved crimes and mysteries. Carla’s boss Pete (Mark Sears) is none too happy about her recent choice of historical cases, and says so in a rather grouchy, badly acted manner. He gives her a week to come up with more audience-friendly fodder or her show will be axed. Of the cast featuring (among others) Harry Boxley (also appearing as Ray, a member of Carla’s crew), Carla herself (May Kelly), and the aforementioned Pete (Mark Sears as Carla’s boss), Mary (Christine Ann Nyland) is the only truly engaging character in a wooden, 2D cast. She manages to be mad, sad and bad at the same time, where the other characters leave a hollow space.

Carla and her entourage stay the night, with Mary, where Carla hears Mary’s tragic tale of how she was once a carefree young girl just like her, until she’s cornered in an alleyway and raped as a 16 year-old, the result being her ‘little lamb’; a son who’s different to other little boys, doesn’t fit in and isn’t accepted. Except she sees through his ‘differences’, as so often only a loving mother can. Her performance here and during the rest of the film is truly heart-rending and to be honest is the only thing worth watching this for, as the rest of the cast look like false, cardboard cutouts in comparison, and her ‘little lamb’ is a caricature of any growling monster/human hybrid you’ll find in any low budget film ever.

That being said, Nyland’s performance makes it very watchable; the creeping madness caused by the damage done to a normal, innocent teen mixed with love for her seriously wrong child gives rise to a plethora of emotions and is rather heartbreaking.

It’s not one I’d go out of my way to recommend, but Mary Had A Little Lamb makes interesting watching; if the rest of the characters had had as much given to them as Mary it’d be a real winner. As it stands it’s an interesting (though not new) concept, but worth a go.

3 out of 10 Fleecy Free-for-alls