Marsha Marsha Marshes

 

I will give almost any Shudder release that sounds mildly intriguing a chance...particularly if said film is short.

Quick Plot: Pria and Ben are microbiologists vying for the same university promotion. Tensions are high, but they have to team up for a weekend in the titular marshes to collect some samples, with undergrad Will tagging along to assist. Along the way, Pria runs afoul of a local couple who don't take kindly to scientists clogging their hunting grounds.

That turns out to be the least of their problems. Around the campfire, Ben tells Will and Pria a ghost story about a Wolf Creek-ish spirit that haunts Australia's wilderness. The next morning, the group awakens to discover something very wrong. 

Just don't ask me to explain what it actually is. 

The Marshes is a strange little movie. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, you'd expect a fairly tight package. The result is anything but. 

Writer/director Roger Scott has a decent touch with actors and a beautiful handle on his visuals. Mostly shot in broad daylight, The Marshes (both the film and literal marshes) look great. The story...less so.

I like ambiguity when done well. The Marshes does not do this well. It throws a dozen threats at us and never actually explains which ones are even happening. There's a supernatural monster...or just a human hunter? The environment may be trapping them in circles...or they may just have a very, very bad sense of direction. 

For scientists, our characters are excessively stupid. While the actors are doing their best (particularly Dafna Kronental) it's hard for us to root too hard for their survival when they're so very bad at it. And when we don't even understand what's hunting them. 

High Points

I'm always in favor of daylight horror, and if nothing else, The Marshes has a nice amount of it

Low Points

This is a movie where someone outruns a sadistic killer only to immediately sit down, look at his friends, and say, "I'm going to go over there to poop now." It is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen happen in a horror movie, and I have, without exaggeration, watched thousands of not JUST horror movies, but very dumb ones

Lessons Learned

Science is the best way to disappoint your parents

Knife-wielding pig hunters are scarier than most ghosts

A grad school education will tell you that it's not normal for a compass to spin like a wheel of fortune

Rent/Bury/Buy

Sigh. I was rooting for The Marshes. It was nicely shot, decently acted, and seemed to demonstrate some promise for its writer/director. Unfortunately, the script is a mess. I found this film incredibly unsatisfying.