The Marshes

Firstly, I'd like to apologise to the poor unfortunate actors in this 'feature', as I know jobs are hard to come by in Australia and it's not your fault you wound up in this utter stinker. You guys deserve better, and I hope each of you has a chance in the future to perform in a movie not so exploitative of the public as to sucker them into suffering what this film was, ie, completely trite trash unworthy of viewing by any member of the human race, despite how heinous their crimes.

This is a film that felt like the writer just gave up trying after the first few minutes, but went on regardless, and no one bothered to read the script until after they finished shooting and even then no one cared.

With all seriousness, I wonder how something this pathetic could ever have been made? Surely Shudder productions paid in advance, not caring what schlock they ended up with, just as long as it had 'Australian' written on it so they could sucker that geographic region of the earth into wasting their money paying a subscription fee, no doubt, to them, the artless charlatans.

The end product conformed to their Mills and Boon romance novel formula-style concocted awful cliche of movie style that they so often present, composed of mangy old three leggers they've rustled from the glue factory reject pen, to populate their list of 'Shudder original horror classics' (give me a break!), which they insultingly claim fits into the horror genre (like my head fits into a ballerina's slipper).

The only true horror was in my mind's eye as I suffered the comprehension that this bomb really had sunk so low as to attempt to turn the Australian folk song 'Waltzing Matilda' into a horror movie, and in doing so, stuffed it up utterly and completely. Of course this song's nature, as a public domain status tune and therefore free from fee type source material, suited the miserably stingy nature of this production, which gave nothing and reserved any imagination it might have utilised instead for something completely unrelated, (if at all endowed with such a faculty which evidently the 'executive creative team' were not).

I felt true fear only when I realised others would unwittingly also be watching, and when considering how much more of it I'd have to endure if successfully able to say I'd watched it all, which, in the end, I just could not.

What were the protagonist's motivations? Did not a hamburger appeal to his tastes? What flawed logic addled by use of far too many stimulants lead the writers to think him in any way at all frightening? Only in my confusion expecting to be entertained was there anything like fright. Was he a ghost or a man? Who really cares anymore, if at all, ever? Why put in any effort toward junk that falls so short of what even a bad film promises?

This film serves as an example of tedium of the highest order. I've never seen a movie before where I fast forwarded to the end to prove to myself the inevitable utterly predictable and unsatisfactory ending I'd assumed all along would and did come, and it did come, and then, exactly as I'd expected, but even more anti-climatically than in my despair I'd imagined it capable of failing to attain.

This film hearkens back to the days of the massive tax breaks offered to film makers when every man and his dog strapped on a discount film camera without reading the instructions, drunkenly started shooting and made it up as they went along, thinking only of the tax credits their novelty prophylactic business was going to receive as result.

It was as though the film makers threatened a ten year old kid on a bus to scribble out a picture of anything at all on the back of an envelope and that then served as their entire script, had so little thought or effort been put into making something worth watching (which it was not) and which, by writing this much about this dour lemon, has granted to it way more interest by myself and all the unfortunate others than ever does it deserve to receive, such an affront to the concept of entertainment does it serve.

Avoid at all costs, including self blinding, and, once again, to the actors, please, do not hurt yourselves-it was clearly not your fault.

Good production values, but the beginning of the film is so slow and dull! Shots of random roadkill and fish feel gratuitous.

When I woke up the movie continued and nothing happened. Won't scare you unless you have a fear of being bored to death.

I love aussie horror movies, the backwoods setting has provided ferocious fun in "Wolf Creek", "Rogue", "Storm Warning" and many others - for those reasons "The Marshes" had been sitting on my watchlist for years before finally coming out. Sadly, it doesn't join the top echelon of Australian horror movies as it is, for the most part, either lacking or slacking.

"The Marshes" starts out fine, introducing nearly all of its characters in the first 10 minutes & showing promise with a decent, sun-kissed cinematography. All is still somewhat okay as we find ourselves in the bushes and the marshes, the aesthetic pleasures provided by Australian nature and wildlife keep it going, along with a decent lead performance by Dafna Kronental. Soon enough I realised the story won't go any further than it already has come, the cinematography starts turning in a big ball of close-ups, shaky camera movement & low-budget solutions that are not exactly 'cutting it'. Furthermore, the last ~40 minutes, which is the action part, takes place entirely during bright daylight, which might've worked on paper, but the result is - it didn't help the mood one bit. The original score's kinda alright, though. Kinda. Oh, and the villain, well, is an inspiring, (for the most part) blurry and shallow supernatural killer figure. As a result of all the flaws, "The Marshes" inevitably runs out of stuff to offer, clothes what it has in shabby filmmaking choices & eventually starts dragging, before ending on a respectable but highly underwhelming note.

I wanted to like "The Marshes", I did, but it just turned out to be so underwhelming. Yet another proof that cool cinematography and awesome locations can't save a movie if it doesn't have story, substance and important genre elements. I'd much rather recommend another re-watch of both "Wolf Creek" movies than this. With a heavy heart, my rating: 3/10.

I am a fan of movies like Wolf Creek and Jeepers Creepers. Here in this movie the director tries to copy and mix both but the execution is weak. First, acting is unreal and pretty poor. Second, the script is pretty bad. Nothing happens on the first 45 minutes. Last, I still don't know what I've watched. So, overall a weak b-horror movie. I don't recommend it. Instead try to re-watch Jeppers Creepers or Wolf Creek again.