Review of Digging Up the Marrow (2015) by Quincytheodore — 03 Mar 2015

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.