Digging Up the Marrow (2014)
Said by some to be a documentary. It's not, it's a shaky cam film with a different slant.
Adam Green is a director i like. Of his output i've seen so far i loved Hatchet and also Frozen, but thought Hatchet 2 was a mess. What i do like about Green is his infectious enthusiasm for horror films and his delight at working in a genre he loves.
Why have i written the above statement about Green you might ask if you've never seen Digging up the Marrow? Well, because Green is both the director and the film's star along with Ray Wise. From the opening credits we are in Green's presence just as we are for every single scene of the movie. So any dislike towards the guy and you may as well not even bother with Digging up the Marrow. The other protagonist is Ray Wise, an actor many will know from Twin Peaks. Wise and Green are excellent together. Wise switching from friendly to intense, sometimes in the same sentence, and Green occasionally looking bemused and worried as he edgily negotiates with this oddball of a man.
The film is fairly straightforward. A middle aged man (Ray Wise) living out in the wilds sends Green a letter asking to meet because he has seen and would like to document an underground (literally) society of monsters or as Wise suggests mutant humans. Green and a camera man visit Wise and attempt to film the mutants.
The film is interesting but not wholly original. The underground network of mutants i felt smacked of Clive Barker and his novel Nightbreed, and of course shaky cam films are old hat in terms of horror cinema. However, this is professionally made, meaning you won't come away feeling sick or annoyed that you just spent 90 minutes staring at the ground.
Digging out the Marrow feels like an experimental film, as with all experimental films it may not work for you. However it did for me. It's not particularly scary nor graphic in any way. What it does is give the viewer an eye into the world of low (ish) budget film making and also of the world of fan horror as various horror celebs pop up including Mick Garris who gives us a revelatory moment and Kane Hodder, whom Green calls on to examine the footage of the creatures.
As the credits rolled it felt like i'd just watched a personal film for Green, not a vanity project, but a film he wanted to make for himself and for other film makers.
Recommended but with a degree of caution that it might not be for you.
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