An article concerning Halloween Horror Nights: Reflections of Fear written by Dewayne Bevil from the Orlando Sentinel:
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When the creative team at Universal Orlando started researching Bloody Mary as a possible icon for Halloween Horror Nights (which kicks off Friday, Sept. 26), they found there was a great awareness of her urban legend through several generations, from folks in their early teens up through their 50s.
However, her story was pretty basic: Say her name three times and she appears in the mirror. Scary!
So for HHN purposes, they created a backstory. Here it is, in the words of Michael Roddy, manager of show development
She was a doctor named Mary Agana in the '50s — 1958 is when all of this went down. She wanted to cure people of their fears and phobias, so she opened this clinic and tried to get funding for it.
What she would do is, let's say you had a fear of ... what are you scared of? [I'm scared of things jumping out at me, I tell Roddy.]
So if you happened to go to her for help or if she knew of your condition, she would invite you to her clinic and strap you to a table and constantly have things jump out at you continually until you got over your fear.
There was a safe word, which was to call her name three times and she would stop the experiment. If it really became too much you could say her name three times and she would stop.
She would watch all of these experiences from behind a two-way mirror so that you felt totally alone until you called her name. Then she would appear in the mirror and stop the experiment.
Well, Mary found out very shortly that she had a fear as well, and that was the fear of death. So she went to cure her own fear. Once she cured the fear of the people that came, sometimes in their last session she wouldn't stop the experiment and scare them to death. And in their death, she became closer to it.
In one of her experiments — the last one, actually — the person broke free from the table while screaming her name, broke through the mirror and pulled her through, which killed her.
She died looking at her own face in the mirror.
That transformed her into the Bloody Mary legend we know today. So that when you call her name, she will break through the mirror. And if you look at her face, all the different cuts and things are from all the times over the years that people have dared to summon her.
It's a very painful experience for her because she gets cuts when she comes through, she takes physical form.
Bonus tidbit: the years 2008 and 1958, when Mary's story is set, use the same calendar. Sept. 26, 2008, is on a Friday ... So was Sept. 26, 1958. Discuss.