Bloody Mary

**Bloody Mary** is a major antagonist and event icon from *Halloween Horror Nights*, based on the urban legend of *Bloody Mary*. She is the ghostly form of evil psychiatrist **Dr. Mary Agana**, though may also be an incarnation of Mary's grandmother, **Mary Worthington**.

## History

### Background

#### The Skoolhouse

Dr. Mary Agana's grandmother was Mary Worthington, a schoolteacher at the *Carey Elementary School* in the town of Carey, Ohio. On the August 27th of 1908, *Carey Elementary* school handyman Aldridge Kesterson and students Louise Hatfield, George Von Stebler, Shawn McPherson, Jim Deedle, Alice Dodgson, and Jeremiah Kubsch pulled a prank on teacher, Mary Worthington. Aldridge's own son Thornton Kesterson was not present due to having been goaded by his father.

The prank seemed to have killed Mary, and her body was never recovered though schoolmaster Mr. Renshaw found shattered glass where it should have been. Mary left behind a daughter, Marie W. Agana, and her spirit may have become the ghost, "Bloody Mary" in folklore. Before her death, Mary Worthington had a daughter named Marie W. Agana.

#### Living Fearlessly

Dr. Mary Agana was the daughter of Marie W. Agana. Mary Agana was a psychologist who developed an experimental form of exposure therapy aimed at curing people of their fears which she dubbed, "Living Fearlessly: Specialized Treatments for Fear Based Ailments". On the June 20 of 1958, Marie died and the family attorney Alexander Pohl left Doctor Agana silver heirlooms which belonged to her mother and grandmother. This included a silver jewelry and music box.

On June 25th, the *National Association of Mental Health* (NAMH) rejected Mary's requests for funding into her *Living Fearlessly* project. Mary ran "Living Fearlessly" on her own from a kind of asylum building with several ex-convict orderlies. The first two patients of her program had been inadvertently killed. Throughout Mary's time running Living Fearlessly, she may have been slowly corrupted or even possessed by the spirit of her grandmother.

New York City illustrator Eileen Harrell visited Agana on July 9, 1958 to cure her fear of myth, legend and the Headless Horseman. Agana exposed Eileen to a severed human head, causing Eileen to become hysteric and institutionalized by the doctor. On July 15, 1958, George Von Stebler was brought to Agana against the wishes of his past psychiatrist & NAMH member Dr. Christian Kubsch, so that George could be cured of his phobia of the Bloody Mary ghost legend and visions of strange symbols so he could be applicable as an astronaut. Agana exposed him to the symbols which he proceeded to carve onto his body before carving out his own eyeball to escape her restraints and make off.

Photographer Charlie McPherson turned to Dr. Mary Agana for assistance after beginning to see zombies in the photographs which he took. Doctor Agana put him in a glass coffin with strobe lights outside imitating his flash photography as a means of exposure therapy. While it was designed for McPherson to escape, he was too afraid and and suffocated to death while his soul was trapped in a mirror world, fighting the zombies he saw in his photographs. Doctor Agana enjoyed the thrill of this manslaughter and it caused her to begin killing more of her patients which were framed as disappearances. McPherson's contact Boris Shuster began investigating the disappearance and the disappearances of Doctor Agana's subsequent victims.

July 30, 1958, barkeep Johnny Deedle went to Doctor Agana after reading a comic called, "Creatures!" by the aforementioned Eileen Harrell which featured a character named Jim Deedle being killed by tentacled monsters. Agana tied him to a table and hypnotized him to believe he was being attacked by tentacles, causing him to try and jump away and be hanged to death by the ropes. Like McPherson, Deedle was trapped in a mirror dimension living out his worst fears. On August 8, 1958 Diane Bennett went to Doctor Agana to treat her phobia. Mary surrounded her with hypnotized patients from Shadybrook repeating fairy-tales and when Diane said the safe-word, this caused the patients to murder Diane.

On August 18, 1958, Thornton Kesterson came to Doctor Agana about his fear of contamination from travels and his fear of fire. Mary proceeded to instantly incinerate him with fire she claimed would de-contaminate him. When the *National Association of Mental Health*(NAMH) rejected Mary's request for funding, she kidnapped NAMH member Dr. Christian Kubsch and murdered him by drilling a hole into his back, triggering his phobia of botched surgeries.

On August 27, 1958, Shuster made an appointment with Doctor Agana. On the night she met with Shuster, Agana was brutally murdered. The exact events remain a mystery although Shuster was arrested for the doctor's death, before being let off when ex-con/boxer David Gronoll who was her patient and/or orderly testified and took the blame. Doctor Agana's body disappeared after this and her spirit became the murderous ghost, "Bloody Mary", summoned by saying her name three times into the mirror.

#### Reflections of Fear

Bloody Mary became a spirit who inhabited a realm known as, "The Mirror". This world preyed on the subconscious and could be divided between: Myths, Tales, Nightmares, Urban Legends, and Fears. Mary would have a court in the Mirror consisting of: The Wicked Witch of the West (from the Wizard of Oz), the Evil Queen (from Snow White), and the pagan goddess Samhain. Also within the mirror, Charlie McPherson was forever being tormented by the zombies in his photographs, Jim Deedle by the tentacled alien monsters, and Diane Bennett within a world of grotesque fairy-tales with morbid endings. Bloody Mary herself resided within the domain of Fear which included a recreation of her asylum base, and an "Asylum in Wonderland" area to torment her victims which also seemed to be tied to Diane Bennett.

August 27th of 2008 was the 50th year anniversary of Dr. Mary Agana's death. Boris Shuster's paranormal investigation organization *Legendary Truth: The Collective* began an investigation on Bloody Mary, whose spirit had since been active within a supernatural mirror dimension. At 11:03 pm on August 27th, Bloody Mary's spirit manifested and caused several of the Collective's agents to vanish.

After this, Bloody Mary opened a portal to the mirror dimension in Universal Studios Florida, disguising it as part of the theme park's annual Halloween celebrations. Calvin Thorncastle began a Legendary Truth mission to defeat Bloody Mary and stop her evil scheme, which involved crowd-sourcing online to find more information while also sending various agents and volunteers into her realm, uncaring of if they would be harmed. After collecting more details on Mary Agana and her patients' origins, Mary was defeated and trapped within her mirror.

#### Later history

Between 2010 and 2016 (likely around 2015), Mary's spirit may have been responsible for freeing Jack the Clown from Fear's Lantern in Universal Studios. When various, "Halloween Horror Nights Icons" were captured within Fear's lantern, Bloody Mary had a sort of presence by appearing through her mirror and shattering its glass. It is unknown if Mary was trapped within Fear's lantern herself.

### Development history

The unused icon for Halloween Horror Nights 18 would have been a character named Nathaniel Crowe. The character of Bloody Mary, inspired by Bloody Mary from folklore while given an original backstory was selected instead. Mary's design was made by Bobby Weiner, a backstory by Michael Aiello, and video-presence/personality by J. Michael Roddy.

## Appearances

### Halloween Horror Nights

#### Ash Vs. Evil Dead

An easter-egg reference to Bloody Mary appeared in this haunted house where there was an advertisement for the babysitting practice of **Mary Agana**.

#### Case Files Unearthed: Legendary Truth

Bloody Mary (presumably the grandmother's iteration of the spirit) may have been referenced on Boris Shuster's evidence board which had an illustration of a long dark haired woman near what appeared to be a mirror and the note "unidentified female subject highly dangerous DO NOT APPROACH".

#### Halloween Horror Nights: Reflections of Fear

Bloody Mary was event icon of this HHN with the various haunted houses connecting to her backstory.

#### Halloween Horror Nights 25

It is believed that the spirit who released Jack the Clown from Fear's lantern was Bloody Mary.

#### Havoc: Derailed

Bloody Mary made a cameo on some of the screens/monitors.

#### HHN Icons: Captured

One section of this haunted house had Bloody Mary screaming through a mirror.

#### HHN XX VIP Lounge

This lounge presented, "Legendary Truth - The Journal of Mary Agana".

#### Tribute Store

A cracked mirror in the 2020 HHN tribute store indirectly referenced Bloody Mary.

## Trivia

* Bloody Mary has various similarities to fellow HHN icon, the Caretaker.
* Several descendants of those involved in Mary Worthington's death are shown to be inhabitants of Universal Orlando's *New York*. Many of them were victims of Mary Worthington's granddaughter, Dr. Mary Agana. It is unknown if Mary herself was based out of Carey or not.
* In Reflections of Fear, Mary was shown to have been in possession of Sleepwell/Sleep-Well, a fictional drug from the 2007 haunted house *A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dreamwalkers* where it was used to prevent nightmares (while allowing Freddy Krueger to materialize).
* Mary's business-card appeared in the sleeve for the merchandise *Legendary Truth the Collective Case Investigation: Boris Shuster*, which identified her as working out of Carey, Ohio.
* The HHN comic-book publisher *Ultra Violent Comics* released their own horror comic called *Asylum in Wonderland*, which shared its name and theming with Bloody Mary's *Asylum in Wonderland* Scarezone. It is unknown if Ultra Violent Comics' comic-book was of any relation to Bloody Mary's looking-glass realm or crimes against Diane Bennet.
* Bloody Mary's head was reused in the haunted house *Leave it to Cleaver*.
* Excluding the unused icons, Bloody Mary was the only HHN original icon to not be one of Fear's heralds nor be present at Fear's Reveal.
* Bloody Mary and Lady Luck are both female HHN icons original to the parks inspired by characters from folklore/myth. They are also both icons responsible for events paralleled in Ultra Violent Comics (*The In-Between* and *Asylum in Wonderland* respectively).
* Since the haunted house *Dead Exposure*, Universal has had multiple HHN attractions taking place in the zombie apocalypse with references to Charlie McPherson and Carey, Ohio such as *ZombieGeddon* and *Dead Exposure: Patient Zero*. As these haunted houses presumably do not take place within the main Halloween Horror Nights shared continuity, it is possible that they are connected to Bloody Mary's mirror realm.

## External links

* *Bloody Mary on the Halloween Horror Nights wiki.*