The Marsh (DVD, 2007)

I have to hand it to Canada. Real smart folks in the horror movie world. Like Silent Hill, Canada is on to something good. What Our Northern neighbors are doing in horror (that Hollywood isn't) is dumping the premium dollars into story line, special effect, costume, etc... NO CHEAP stuff! What they do to subsidize the cost is get 'High quality' acting and a cast without the necessarily 'designer' big names. Good talent but reasonable to budget and the actors REALLY want to do it!! That's what made the Marsh good!

The Marsh is a basic horror-suspense plot - eerie young girl, scary images that lurk behind characters whenever they look in mirrors, and supporting characters that get dispatched by the creepy ghosts that chase around the main protagonist in ways that sometimes confuse. It's not the worst example of this sort of film, Horrors are hard to write.

Horror flicks revolving around hauntings are always a bit contrived, as the main characters never try to flee the premises when things get truly scary. Not once does Claire (main character)question her own sanity, taking the visions immediately at face value, instantly assuming a posture of plausibility (that hurt this movie). Usually there's a traumatic mystery that the hero needs to unravel to make the ghosts disappear, and momentum almost goes once you find out just what's behind the red taped B.S.

The Marsh is a prime example of one of these films that falls down toward the end, revealing most predicted would happen and it does. It does attempt to play the audience with a twistand end for the average viewer I think the movie will play you. The experienced Horror buff won't be fooled.

This is really a suspence and not a horror because the scary visions are mild and not particularly frightful. On the acting side, Good cast! Anwar and Whitaker do perform well, as does the rest of the cast (a mostly no-name supporting cast like I indicated in paragraph #1).

If you've seen your share of horror movies in the last five years, you've seen everything The Marsh has to offer already and may be bored. I thought it was good as a suspence but not a horror. In fact the more it tries to generate terror, the more it cheapened itself. Over played concepts bog this one down but for $5.00, It's worth a buy and see.