How to catch a Monster - Die Monster-Jäger

This is a film I have been wanting to see for a while now. I hadn't even seen a trailer, just read the story line and it sounded amazing. When I finally found it, I was excited and even watched the trailer just to make sure it was going to be worth watching. The trailer was awesome and I was ready to dive right in.

Unfortunately, everything in the trailer is pretty much all the great moments in this movie.

With such an awesome story idea I was greatly disappointed that the deliver wasn't as good. In fact, the film relied to heavy on plot and story line that I think it forgot it was a horror film. In fact the music used in the movie was cheesy and reminded me of a romantic comedy score.

The biggest problem with this film is the Director/Writer Adam Green, not that he didn't write or direct a good film, it was that he starred in it and was the most obnoxious character I have seen on film in the past ten years (and that includes ALL of Will Farrell's films in the last ten years).

I really felt that Adam Green had such a great idea, something unique even though the story line itself is not all that original, but the idea was wasted. Throughout the whole film I kept thinking that this was nothing more than a huge advertisement for his other films, especially his TV show on FearNet which was said about a thousand times in this film.

I won't say it's a complete waste of time, in fact when the scary moments happen, and they are far and few in between, it was interesting and fun to watch. The rest of it however, was annoying and boring. Such a wasted opportunity.

I would like to a sequel, something that would follow the horror aspect of the story line a lot more. There is just so much more this film could have given us and instead wasted the whole time promoting his other movies. The ending left me wanting more and not in a good way.

This is a horror flick, taking the road of a fake documentary (mockumentary) that's all about the plot.

The whole thought put into making the overall Marrow structure kinda amazed me. While watching, even though you're not thrilled or anything, you're deep curious to know what's going to be the outcome of all that.

Acting is regular, nothing special. Also, I liked that they went down the practical effects road. Even though it's pretty obvious that the effects are cheap, I like that feeling you get while seeing someone in rubber costumes and go full "aaah, practical effects all the way"! (It's way better than seeing bad CGI).

There're some jump scares here and there, but that's about it; it's all about the story indeed.

Adam Green would probably better off making Hatcher 4 or actual documentary of his work. Digging Up The Marrow is an average found footage film with reliance of authenticity as film makers find an odd conspiracy theory. It gets a bit too meta with inside joke and backstage production, but there isn't much excitement since more than half of the content is simple bantering. What few scares it has are only half effective and numbingly too late.

Plot involves a real production house, they are called by a strange old man claiming that he has seen another world filled with monsters. Adam Green and his colleagues investigate this story with generous amount of interviews and vague camera shots. Since it's a mockumentary, genuine reaction might contribute more, but as the story progresses the yelling and debating become stale incredibly fast. Script is more true to life, yet it's often too sporadic to form any suspense.

The better part of the film is behind-the-scene features. It's nice to see more of the assembly parts of filmmaking, be that artistic design, editing process or a few nit bits from comic-con. Whereas the horror plot isn't that appealing or convincing in any way. Unfortunately, there is hefty amount of the playtime that's allocated for this horror tale which lacks real tension. There are a couple of good moments, but even those are expected gimmick other found footage films have already done, and ironically the film itself is aware of this.

Camera work is not great, it predictably uses first person view or some manners of CCTV. The most agonizing part of this subgenre, shots in the dark and shaky cam are also presented here. Although some of the effects could build the atmosphere, but halfway point after hearing multiple banters the film becomes tedious.

If it's a complicated way to show passion for the work, there has to be better ways to convey that message. A montage of authentic production from old films would be more fascinating than pseudo horror like this.

A documentary exploring genre based monster art takes an odd turn when the filmmakers are contacted by a man (Ray Wise) who claims he can prove that monsters are indeed real.

At first, the concept of a monster documentary is good and the first few minutes are really enjoyable. The footage of asking convention guests about monsters seems genuine, and it could have been a story worth pursuing if a narrative could be built around the interviews.

But once we shift, it becomes obvious that casting Ray Wise is the biggest mistake. Rue Morgue said it (and then let it slide). Aaron Christensen came down hard on Adam Green for this. I am somewhere between the two. I think the concept is really clever, and my admiration for Green lets me be a bit more open-minded. But there really is no getting around it: Wise, who is incredible in this role, simply cannot be anyone other than Ray Wise in a "documentary".

We also learn that Mick Garris is a terrible actor. That should probably come as no surprise, but it is amusing to see that Garris cannot even play Mick Garris for less than five minutes without goofing it up.

This was honestly a very different type of film. I am not very conversant with Adam Green's films (I surely PLAN to become that way though...) so I didn't really know what to expect.

Since I usually look at movies from the standpoint of 'film making', I think that I can see what he was trying to do with this one. A very unusual approach indeed... I think what I liked about it (other than the bloody FANTASTIC Ray Wise, of course) is the change in tone as you watch it. At the beginning it actually is quite funny and as the 'Trivia' section mentions, the entire film was very carefully scripted, although it does NOT come across that way at all. So, with that in mind, I really appreciated the genuine and natural humour that he drew out of the movie, especially with many of his own reactions to what was being said by others. He is really funny. But, I liked that as you became more engrossed in the story and began to see Adam's interest in the reality of the stories he was being told have an effect on him, I really liked the change in tone as things got more serious. I very much liked that and thought that they did an excellent job in switching gears, as it were...

Whether you suspend disbelief enough to become invested in the story or not, I truly found the film in it's entirety to be very entertaining. A LOT of the entertainment value come from Adam's own life and real friends and family being portrayed and his excellent interaction with them when talking about this 'Project'. Most of the rest of the entertainment value comes directly from the always awesome Ray Wise. He was frigg'n GREAT the whole way, in my lowly and wretched opinion. His VERY subtle turns at absolute DEADPAN humour were totally hilarious! And Adam's reaction to them was just as great. As far as the actual story being told and the 'Documentary' approach, sure, if you have an active imagination like I do, you can get caught up in that too...

I think that people who automatically dismiss the film because Ray Wise, a very well known actor, is in it, are missing the point of the movie. As mentioned in the 'Trivia' section here, they REALLY agonized on whether to use someone well known as the main guy or not. But, after giving it a lot of thought and getting audience's reactions, they realized that to approach the movie as a fully genuine 'True' story and then LATER likely disappoint the audience or make them feel 'fooled' was something that they did not want to do, as some other 'Mockumentaries' have fallen victim to. So, this way, the audience KNOWS right from the start that it is fiction, but at the same time by cleverly using Adam and his family and friends as REAL people along with their choice of Ray Wise, they came up with a very unique and interesting balance for this kind of movie.

So, this is quite honestly an EXTREMELY difficult film to recommend to people in general. As you can see from the many varied reviews here, that the reactions are truly all OVER the place. I personally think that if you are a film maker yourself, OR if you look at films from a film maker or director's perspective, OR if you have a real love and affection for the Horror Genre itself, THEN you will have a much greater chance at really enjoying this unique and entertaining film.