Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Marrowbone Blu-ray Movie Review

The Past Isn't Past

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 11, 2018

Would Marrowbone be more effective, or less, if it had been set in Spain and made in Spanish? It's a question worth considering, given the undeservedly weak reviews for Sergio G. Sánchez' directorial debut. Sánchez approaches horror thrillers very differently from what American, Canadian and even U.K. audiences have come to expect. His is a slow-burn style typified by his 2007 quasi-supernatural chiller, The Orphanage, directed by Sánchez' friend and fellow Spaniard, J.A. Bayona. The writer and director collaborated again in 2010 on a very different kind of thriller, the hyper-realistic The Impossible, an English-language feature that was emblematic of the pair's migration toward the mainstream. Bayona has now gone thoroughly Hollywood, helming the latest installment of the Jurassic Park franchise, but Sánchez is keeping a foot in both worlds. Marrowbone was made in Spain with a mostly Spanish crew, but it is set in the countryside of Maine—Stephen King territory—and its cast is mostly British. Bayona served as executive producer, but Marrowbone is very much Sánchez' show, with the writer/director returning to familiar themes and images from his ghostly past.

If for no other reason, the Blu-ray release of Marrowbone should be noteworthy, because it is the film with which Magnolia Home Entertainment is taking its first step into the world of 4K UHD. (That disc, which is currently a Best Buy exclusive, with general release in October, will be the subject of a separate review.) But Marrowbone is worthy of attention in its own right, because it manages to do something original and unexpected while remaining firmly planted within classic genre conventions. You just have to give it some time and your undivided attention.

As the writer/director admits in the disc extras, Marrowbone is difficult to discuss without spoilers, but the narrative foundations are clearly laid. The year is 1969, a time when it was much easier than it would be now for people to disappear into the countryside. An English family, the Fairbairns, arrive at the remote country house in Maine where "Mum" (Nicola Harrison) grew up. Her four children accompany her, and they are all fleeing the family patriarch in England, the enormity of whose monstrous behavior is gradually revealed. As the four children look around their new home, Mum draws a line in the dust and tells them that, by crossing it, they will cease to be Fairbairns and will now take the name of "Marrowbone", after the house. Following a moment's hesitation, each one steps over the line: 20-year old Jack (George MacKay, 11.22.63), 19-year-old Jane (Mia Goth, A Cure for Wellness ), 18-year-old Billy (Charlie Heaton, Stranger Things) and 5-year-old Sam (Matthew Stagg, BBC's recent War and Peace). Their new life begins, recorded and narrated by George in a hand-written volume entitled "Our Story", which he illustrates with ink and water-color drawings.

The family's first summer in their new home is a happy one, as they play on the nearby beach, explore local rock formations (one of which is ominously shaped like a skull) and become friends with Allie (Anya Taylor-Joy, Split). Her family home is on a neighboring hill, and she and George begin a romance. But then Mum becomes fatally ill, and the children do their best to care for both her and each other. Before she dies, she instructs George to pretend to the outside world—personified by attorney Tom Porter (Kyle Soller, TV's current Poldark )—that she is still alive until George turns 21, when he can legally assume responsibility for the family. The strategy works, until one day a bullet is fired through a window of the house, shattering the fragile peace of the Marrowbone siblings. A man's figure is seen ominously in the distance.

At this point in Marrowbone, the film asks a lot of the viewer, jumping forward six months and withholding any explanation of the attack or its aftermath. The Marrowbones' life seems to have resumed its routine, including regular encounters with Allie. But the house is full of strange phenomena: odd noises that may or may not be caused by the local raccoon, a patch of stained ceiling that won't stay painted over and every mirror in the house covered to protect the family from a spirit of which young Sam is particularly terrified. The children believe that they have contained a ghost in the bricked-up attic, but every so often it threatens to break free, shaking off a sheet covering a mirror and sending the younger Marrowbones cowering into their makeshift bedroom "fort" until Jack can re-cover the reflective surface. Blocking the mirrors also insulates Jack from seeing the angry scar he's acquired on his forehead from a deep gash that obviously went untreated.

The children sell baked goods to the shop in the local village to earn cash, but it's not enough to solve all of their money problems, which leads to their opening a mysterious box that Mum left behind. All the while, attorney Porter is sniffing around the edges of the Marrowbones' insistence that their mother is a bedridden invalid who cannot see him but is still very much alive. Porter's inquiries have a personal incentive, because he too is in love with Allie, though she only has eyes for Jack.

If you're willing to surrender to Sánchez' leisurely pace, he effectively sustains a growing sense of dread, punctuated by a few well-timed "jump" scares. It helps that he's assembled a talented and committed cast, who lend Marrowbone an essential dramatic heft as the four siblings grapple with internal disputes and fend off external threats. The home constructed by the production team contributes to the creepiness, seamlessly blending real elements and CG extensions into a crumbling mansion of gothic mystery. Most genre sophisticates will guess at least some of Marrowbone's secrets before they're revealed, but I'll bet that at least one or two will come as a surprise. Like all haunted houses, this one has seen some genuine horrors, and they've left an indelible mark.

Marrowbone Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Marrowbone was shot digitally by Spanish cinematographer Xavi Giménez, who has extensive experience with offbeat films, having photographed The Machinist and Intacto. In the extras, Giménez speaks of his desire to emulate the style of the late Nestor Almendros (Days of Heaven), who preferred to shoot in natural light and without filters. As a result, Marrowbone often seems to be darker than it really is, because Giménez avoids what is commonly called "key light" and simply allows the actors to move in and out of shadow without highlighting their presence, and he doesn't intensify daylight, as is common in Hollywood films. Marrowbone has its share of dark scenes, especially in the film's final half hour, and in memory they cast a shadow over the entire film (which is no doubt the desired effect).

The image on Magnolia's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray reflects the usual virtues of digital capture, with superior sharpness and detail and an absence of noise, interference or artifacts. Blacks are deep and solid, and the colors are mostly natural, without pumped-up intensity or oversaturation. I say "mostly natural", because key sequences have been color-graded in post-production, sometimes for additional warmth and sometimes for a sickly greenish cast that accentuates a sense of foreboding. The alterations are subtle enough to register subliminally, at least on a first viewing (and maybe on every viewing by someone who isn't taking or studying screen captures, which tend to focus the eye on such things).

Some of Magnolia's recent encodes have reflected bitrates on the stingy side, but Marrowbone has been authored with a more generous average of 29.98 Mbps.

Marrowbone Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Marrowbone is, as far as I know, the second Magnolia disc to arrive with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack (the first was the Norwegian disaster film, The Wave, in 2016). It's an interesting choice for an Atmos mix, because, at first listening, the effects aren't showy and the events onscreen don't really appear to lend themselves to elaborate sound editing. But if you listen closely, Marrowbone presents an effective demonstration of Atmos' ability to do quiet. Both the titular house and the surrounding forest, beaches and town are filled with tiny environmental sounds—grass rustling here, distant surf over there, the ominous rustle of a sheet slowly detaching itself from the mirror it's covering—and these subtle effects are clearly articulated and precisely placed. More pronounced effects like the scuttling and pounding from the bricked-up attic overhead are given similar treatment. Voices are clearly individualized and occasionally move off-camera, and the dialogue is always clear.

The soundtrack's real glory is the symphonic score composed by Fernando Velázquez, who also scored The Orphanage and The Impossible, as well as Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak. Velázquez describes in the extras how he worked with the Asturias Symphony Orchestra, which had never before played on a movie soundtrack, and his instrumentals rely heavily on that ensemble's massive string section to enhance moods ranging from terror to joy to deep sadness. It's a rich experience, gorgeously reproduced and spread throughout the listening space by the Atmos track. The track also features an occasional period tune—The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" plays a key role—often played as source music on a tape recorder, radio or phonograph.

Marrowbone Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted/Extended Scenes (1080p; 2.39:1; 29:15): The scenes are not separately listed or selectable, and there are no title cards or other text to identify them. Many of the trims were obviously made because they gave away too much too soon. The scene with the bear invading the house was probably deemed extraneous. The most interesting lift is the introduction of the matchmaking aunt and disapproving uncle with whom Allie lives; in the final cut, they do not appear.



• Marrowbone Behind the Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 29:28): This is an unusually detailed and informative EPK featuring interviews with all of the principal cast (in English) as well as director Sánchez, executive producer Bayona, cinematographer Xavi Giménez, composer Fernando Velázquez and several other producers (all in Spanish with English subtitles). Multiple topics are explored, including development of the story, the casting process, the challenge of creating a Maine country house and landscape in Asturias, Spain, and the meticulous design of the Marrowbone home, for which the interiors were real but the exteriors and surroundings were almost entirely CG.



• Marrowbone Effects Reel (1080p; 2.39:1; 1:46): This is a compilation of before-and-after clips seen in the "behind the scenes" featurette.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2.39:1; 2:12).



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: Trailers for Higher Power, Don't Grow Up, Dead Shack and Found Footage 3D, plus promos for The Charity Network and AXS TV. These also play at startup.



• BD-Live: Magnolia continues to include this vestigial feature, but the message has changed: "No update available at this time." If experience is any guide, no update will ever be available.

Marrowbone Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Marrowbone has been designed for repeat viewings, because it plays differently once you know the full story. Little more can be said without spoilers, but I found Sánchez' haunted tale more engaging, and ultimately more moving, than the usual genre film, precisely because it does take its time to explore the characters and lay out a consistent and coherent narrative. Magnolia's Blu-ray presentation is effective and highly recommended, with the caveat that the film probably won't appeal to those looking for maximum shocks or gore.