The Marsh (2006/Thriller)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Film: C-

 

 

Some thrillers latterly are so bad, it is beyond belief.  The remakes, prequels and sequels of late have been bad enough, but there are plenty of “original” works that are just as bad and worse because they do the same stupid rip-off things without plastering a familiar title on them.  Jordan Barker’s The Marsh (2006) is such a stupid project and without Forest Whittaker turning up briefly, this would have been less likely to find us.  Now that he is a Best Actor Oscar winner, it may haunt you the wrong way and find more more easily.

 

Though she writes children’s book, Claire (Gabrielle Anwar) is constantly seeing vision of death (maybe from reading Michael Stokes’ script to this mess) and the visions will not stop.  The brief pre-credit piece is one of the worst we’ve seen in a long while, but it unfortunately gets worse and worse and worse and worse.  Anwar is even appealing, but she comes across as a total goof and you’ll feel like one if you endure the 92 minutes of this turkey.  The make-up is also bad.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is nothing special with drab colors that do not make this any better, depth & detail limits and nothing particularly memorable about its look.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is embarrassing in its loud punctuations and even imbalance in doing so means the mixer and musicians got carried away.  There is a making of piece as an extra, but it is so trite, forget it!

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo