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MARA
Director: Clive Tonge Cast: Olga Kurylenko, Craig Conway, Mitch Eakins, Lance E. Nichols, Rose Fellner, Mackenzie Imsand, Javier Botet MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:39 Release Date: 9/7/18 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 6, 2018 Mara opens with a startling statistic that a sizeable percentage of the population experiences sleep paralysis. It's the first eyebrow-raising moment of many in this horror movie, which supposes that the concept of a "waking nightmare" is actually the influence of a demonic presence, which possesses the single goal of eventually killing people. All of this is a given within the world of the movie, which is mostly an excuse for a series of sequences in which characters lie helpless in bed, as the long-limbed, eponymous demon reveals itself within or pops into frame, before making a slow walk toward its intended victim. Director Clive Tonge is surprisingly subdued in approaching these scare scenes (at least, relatively speaking), as the appearance of Mara is often presented as a game of finding the demon in a room as the camera pans across the space. It's not particularly good at hiding, meaning that we're staring at the thing well before it starts moving with a sting accompanying its movements on the soundtrack. The story itself is a mystery involving a group of people who appear to have been gruesomely murdered. The lead character is Kate (Olga Kurylenko), a forensic psychologist who's investigating the deaths and very quickly is haunted by Mara herself. The demon's technique involves four stages, eventually revealing itself to its intended victims in their waking hours. Kate has to figure out why it's happening and, hopefully, figure out how to stop it. There's really not much to say about Tonge's scare tactics, which become more aggressive as Mara gets closer, and even less to say about the story, which is mostly about Kate figuring out a lot of exposition while characters around her are killed. Jonathan Frank's screenplay tries to inject some skepticism through a detective (played by Lance E. Nichols) and a sleep expert (played by Mitch Eakins), but those characters are just obstacles to prolong the inevitable fact that the murderous Mara is real. The whole movie becomes a predictable routine—scares in the night and back story during the day. Tonge provides some dark and chilly atmosphere to the nighttime proceedings, but that's not nearly enough to elevate Mara above its tedious formula. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for disturbing violent images, and language)
