Digging Up the Marrow

a documentary-style found footage film by the writer/director of Holliston and the Hatchet slasher series. i'd heard good things about the monster design and make-up, but wasn't very impressed. the monsters get only a few seconds a piece of shaky-camera screen time and are actually pretty cartoonishly goofy-looking if you pause on them

the movie suffers a bit from the shaky camera syndrome typical of its genre — there's a point where the crew is sitting in the woods at night, waiting for a monster to appear, and when one of them points to a shape moving through the trees, the camera guy focuses literally everywhere but where the character is pointing. i can only imagine it was done on purpose to parody the genre style, and the actors were laughing about it behind the scenes

the story is imaginative and compelling, and Ray Wise, as detective William Dekker who invites director Adam Green to witness and record proof of the existence of monsters, is a great actor and storyteller. my favourite scenes are the ones where Adam and the film crew are just sitting in Dekker's house, recording his stories of past encounters with and illustrations of monsters from a subterranean metropolis he calls The Marrow

i like the film despite it's flaws and wouldn't mind a sequel picking up exploration, where this one ends rather abruptly, of The Marrow and its inhabitants. recommended for fans of found footage monster movies

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.

Adam Green, the upstart horror fan boy filmmaker behind Frozen and the Hatchet movies, directs this mockumentary about his love of monsters and how it leads to a strange old man called Decker (Ray Wise of Twin Peaks and Jeepers Creepers 2). Green plays himself as himself, not as a cartoonish parody as he did on his now defunct TV series Holliston. And we follow Green and his trusty cameraman as they record Decker's ramblings about the secret, subterranean society of monsters that lives beneath our world. Decker (a name presumably referencing David Cronenberg's legendary monster hunter from Clive Barker's Nightbreed) even claims to have found an entrance to this other world, a hole in the ground near a cemetery which he calls the Marrow.

Digging Up the Marrow is a fast paced, entertaining little movie that functions as a sort of subversion of the done to death found footage sub genre. But that also brings me to my main problem with the movie. I just am not sure what Adam Green intended to do here.

By playing himself, and having several other notable genre names cameo as themselves, people like Kane Hodder and Tom Holland, it seems that he wants to blur the lines between fact and fiction. However, by casting recognizable character actor Ray Wise as the fictional character at the center of all this, he completely ruins the illusion making it obvious from the start that this is wholly a work of fiction. So why make the movie in this fashion? I honestly have no idea.

But, I did enjoy watching the movie and Green does manage to prove at least two things here. The first is that he actually can "act" although he is playing himself, he plays himself as a likable, slightly awkward dreamer whose desperation to believe leads him down a rabbit hole into increasingly dangerous situations. The second is his wholehearted and rather admirable dedication to practical special effects. There is no cheesy CG here and what you see is obviously tangible and quite well designed to boot. Digging in the Marrow may feel a tad disposable, more like a time killing side project than a true feature, but it's still more entertaining and engaging than a lot of low budget crap out there. So check it out and have a good time.

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.

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.