Movie Review: Digging Up The Marrow

Adam Green mixes fiction with reality in his latest film Digging Up The Marrow. The film seems to be Green’s answer to the question – What if monsters were real? Having liked Frozen but also being very lukewarm on the whole Hatchet series, I was keen to see which side of the fence I’d end up.

Played out as a documentary-come-found footage film or rather a making of the documentary Green tells us that a strange man called Decker (Ray Wise) has contacted him and that he can show him hard evidence that monsters do exist and what’s more, they live right under us. From this point the film spends its trying to capture these monsters on film, finding out more about Decker until the film builds to its climax. For me it wasn’t the pay off at the end or even the sighting of any monsters that I liked best. What I liked best was the time taken to build the film, with the strange Decker throwing in half truths, to the point where Green doesn’t trust him so much that he can’t believe his own eyes. For Green the discovery of actual monsters is a childhood dream come true, which pushes him to go further than he probably should.

Green is a decent actor (however it’s not difficult to play a version of yourself and no I haven’t ever watched Holliston) and is quite engaging but its Ray Wise as Decker that is far and away the standout, which he should be as he has the most interesting character, grumpy but charismatic however it is the delivery of his lines that drew me in and added some gravitas to the story. The rest of the cast – mostly horror directors or actors playing themselves – are quite good too never treating it as joke and being very natural. The effects are obviously all about the monsters and the work is really good bar one or two images which makes one monster in particular seem plastic.

I like this film a lot. It had me very intrigued and wanting to know what was next – part of the build up I was writing about in the second paragraph – however there were a few things that made the film slide a few pegs. It’s a little to do with some of the plot choices, the soft ending and the fact that I think they glossed over the most interesting part of Decker’s background. SPOILER ALERT – Kind of – Decker thinks that the monsters are deformed children that go to live under the earth and morph into these monsters, he mentions his own son once and then brushes over it and then is there is the padlock room in Decker’s house… I think Green could have and should have made more out it; it could’ve added so much more emotion to the finale – END SPOILER

Digging Up The Marrow is a lot of fun, tapping into your childhood dreams (or fears) and Green’s enthusiasm for the material is evident as he takes us on a wild ride. If the film got a bit deeper on an emotional level or was a bit scarier it could have been a classic.

Ryan Morrissey-Smith