The Marshes

I would think by this stage of cinematic history, shaky cam would be downright passe. Not according to this guy! In The Marshes, you've got shaky cam to convey tension, suspense, action, horror, travelling from one place to another, getting lost (in the fore... No, this one has "The Marshes!"), hell, there's a sex scene with relentless shaky cam! I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Only the laziest of filmmakers convey action or chaos by shaking the camera around. It is simply ineffective and confusing.

After the first 45 minutes, I said, out loud, What in the F am I watching? (Only I didn't say F). It's a thrilling tale about microbiologists, in Australia... Testing water samples. Chew on that. Apparently the teacher has an affair with her student. Or was that a dream? Pria has this awful tendency toward dream sequences. Right up to the bitter end.

I have to assume this writer/director wanted to create a franchise-worthy villain. He's got a weapon of choice, he's a cannibal, he's big and imposing, big beard, er, he's Australian, and... has a hat. Frankly, they under use "Swagman" (it's implied this guy's an imposter, a copycat killer, so who knows?), he's presented in glimpses and silhouettes. There is no tension, you hear whistling (I'm talking franchise!), he appears out of the marshes, or drags someone away. I actually thought the rednecks were more threatening. They throw in an occasional glimpse of gore, or a dead animal. Oh, PLENTY of random shots to pad out this runtime, because one thing this movie is clearly lacking, is ideas. It really all amounts to nothing.

In one scene, Ben (Pria's surly assistant, not the love interest), is strung up, and they hatch an impromptu "ambush." WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE AMBUSH? One second they're hiding and watching in the bushes, then Ben is gutted, and what? Pria and Will have fallen asleep? Pria discovers two hooks and entrails... and promptly leaves Will behind to cower? Somebody, please tell me, what was the logic in this sequence?

I love aussie horror movies, the backwoods setting has provided ferocious fun in "Wolf Creek", "Rogue", "Storm Warning" and many others - for those reasons "The Marshes" had been sitting on my watchlist for years before finally coming out. Sadly, it doesn't join the top echelon of Australian horror movies as it is, for the most part, either lacking or slacking.

"The Marshes" starts out fine, introducing nearly all of its characters in the first 10 minutes & showing promise with a decent, sun-kissed cinematography. All is still somewhat okay as we find ourselves in the bushes and the marshes, the aesthetic pleasures provided by Australian nature and wildlife keep it going, along with a decent lead performance by Dafna Kronental. Soon enough I realised the story won't go any further than it already has come, the cinematography starts turning in a big ball of close-ups, shaky camera movement & low-budget solutions that are not exactly 'cutting it'. Furthermore, the last ~40 minutes, which is the action part, takes place entirely during bright daylight, which might've worked on paper, but the result is - it didn't help the mood one bit. The original score's kinda alright, though. Kinda. Oh, and the villain, well, is an inspiring, (for the most part) blurry and shallow supernatural killer figure. As a result of all the flaws, "The Marshes" inevitably runs out of stuff to offer, clothes what it has in shabby filmmaking choices & eventually starts dragging, before ending on a respectable but highly underwhelming note.

I wanted to like "The Marshes", I did, but it just turned out to be so underwhelming. Yet another proof that cool cinematography and awesome locations can't save a movie if it doesn't have story, substance and important genre elements. I'd much rather recommend another re-watch of both "Wolf Creek" movies than this. With a heavy heart, my rating: 3/10.

Not many Aussie horror films I have not liked and I did like this one but as the other reviewer points out the story needs fleshed out more.

Great atmosphere, photography and quite chilling kills and the sound effects were superb but without the bones of a story to flesh it out on it just gets an average 5/10 from me!

This is supposed to be horror? Please do not waste a moment of your life watching this extremely BORING film. You could fast forward the first 45 minutes before anything remotely interesting starts to happen. Waste of movie potential and only three main characters which really doesn't give film-makers much to work with. I think the film-makers must be the ones reviewing this. I'd like to give a higher mark for effort, but the movie's a complete bore. The actors are good though, but they needed a much quicker-paced screenplay. A somewhat rip off of Wolf Creek without the terror and interesting villain.

This is a good-looking, acceptably acted film that goes the "Wolf Creek" route not just in outback-horror theme, but in taking a long time establishing character and slight warning bells before finally bringing the horror. Unfortunately, where that strategy hugely paid off for "Wolf," making the horror content all the stronger, here the long buildup only underlines how weak the payoff is. The "Swagman" nemesis of apparent Australian folk legend whoi bedevils three university field researchers here is treated too literally to pull off the supernatural menace intended, and too abstractly to be credible as a real-world one depicted (we actually see him gutting people, etc.).

All the urgency, tension, panic and so forth that should explode in the second half instead turn out to be things this director doesn't do well. The movie just kind of slowly falls apart when it should grip us ever tighter. I get the feeling that the filmmaker was attracted to using this flat, marshy outback territory as a sort of "Blair Witch" labyrinth in which people get lost-absorbed into a hostile landscape, so to speak. But the more blatant genre aspects he had to incorporate to get funding (meaning the Swagman hook itself) aren't things he has much feel for, or probably even wanted to do.

So you've got a horror movie in which all the things that should be supportive atmosphere (primarily the often-impressive widescreen cinematography, plus a pretty good score) are decent, but the horror that should be the focus becomes increasingly lame and convictionless. It's a movie that gets less scary as it goes on, yet the audiovisual elements remain just interesting enough in a semi-arty way that the silliness doesn't translate into "so bad it's good" fun. So, the whole thing is a bit of a wash--one that suggests talent, perhaps, but not for this kind of film.