Marianne

The thing which gets you hooked up at one place! This New French series is top notch! Hold your breath for jump scares!

Netflix promises a lot, but not always delivers. They did deliver, though, with "Marianne", an eight-episode French series that will fix your need for all things Stephen King and Conjuring-related.

The story's premise is as formulaic as can be in the horror genre, especially inspired by S. King's novels: Emma, a thirty-something French horror writer, has decided to put an end to a series of books that tell the story of Lizzie Lark, her heroine, who battles an evil witch called (you guessed it) Marianne. Emma has had enough of this character and wants to move on with her life, and, maybe, write something else, something more "serious" (she is a French novelist, after all). Little did she expect a former school friend, Caro, to show up at one of her book signing events, and scare her into returning back to her hometown, which she had left 15 years before, after a terrible tragedy.

The cast is solid, the characters interesting, diverse and well-developed. Some moments are genuinely scary. The pacing may at times be a problem, and the series slows down in the middle, but nothing too problematic. The script is clever and culminates in an extremely promising cliffhanger that will certainly leave you wanting for a second series.

It started out great and there are a few good moments throughout but as it went on it got more nonsensical. The comedy sprinkled throughout was funny but unfortunately took away from the creepiness. Lots of hommage to horror movies (even anime) which was interesting but it got to the point where it was distracting. It was way overhyped on social media and it feels disappointing that it did not deliver to the degree that was advertised.

If you enjoy Stephen King and Insidious-styke horror, check.out this French series. Great cinematography and imagery, good acting, and creepy dread. The unlikeable lead is well played. Robert says, "check it out."

France has brought us horror favorites such as 'High Tension', 'Martyrs' and 'Inside'. From Netflix, on the other hand, we got last year's excellent horror offering "The Haunting of Hill House". So I got really excited, when this French horror show hit Netflix and early reviewers seemed to be stoked. Unfortunately, 'Marianne' turned out to be very different from the examples above. It's mostly reminiscent of Sam Raimi's dark horror comedy 'Drag Me To Hell', including a gross out old lady, a lot of quirkiness and body horror. But the problem here is, that 'Marianne' also wants to be a drama. That doesn't work at all, as neither the story nor the characters can ever really be taken seriously. It's a tonally incoherent mess, jumping back and forth from scares to comic relief moments. The characters are either unlikable (such as the rather pretentious lead) or bland, or both. On the plus side, there's the nice scenery and cinematography. The scare scenes are mostly effective (albeit nothing we haven't seen before). So this could have been a great show, if the characters were more compelling, the narrative more straightforward and above all, void of the unecessary comic relief.