Marianne

It seems like years that I was frightened by a horror. Half way thru episode one and I am watching with my hands over my eyes. If you like being scared don't miss this.

The idea of the plot was interesting, the cinematography was really good, many creepy scenes throughout the series BUT... the writers were really confused. The story is all over the place, everything is happening so fast (especially in the first three episodes), there's no atmosphere or mystery whatsoever. The characters are all superficial at best with no chemistry between them. And also what's with the comedy all the time?? Especially in moments when everyone is supposed to be worried. All in all, it's just sad that such a good story idea was so poorly executed. Watch it but don't have high expectations.

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.

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."

I really wanted to like this more, particularly due to the lack of descent horror series we have been facing lately. But it's very disappointing to see such a good cinematography wasted on a lazy story full of random silly rules, cliches and dull jumpscares. There's not one really scary scene and everything is so predictable. At best, it might serve as a generic teen entertainment for those not familiar with the genre.