The Secret of Marrowbone – Film Review

Posted on July 5, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Sergio G. Sánchez

Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez

Starring: George MacKay, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Mia Goth, Matthew Stagg, Kyle Soller, Nicola Harrison, and Tom Fisher

Rating: ★★★

The Secret of Marrowbone (AKA simply Marrowbone in some countries) is a 2017 horror film from writer and director Sergio G. Sánchez. It’s a fairly familiar story about the past and mental illness, but it does manage to be entertaining as it follows some typical plot points.

Rose Marrowbone (Nicola Harrison) takes her four children to a remote and isolated house in America to escape her abusive ex-husband. They start a new life, forgetting about their past, and start to settle into happier times. The traveling takes a lot out of Rose who falls ill and dies, with her final wish being that her children keep her death a secret until the eldest, Jack’s (George MacKay) twenty-first birthday.

There are two sides to this film. At points it’s a fairly standard and straightforward ghost story, with a chilling atmosphere and a growing sense of dread and fear. On the other hand, it’s also a period drama set in 1969, that follows the Marrowbone family as they try to keep their mother’s wish. They have problems arise as the local lawyer starts digging into their history, Jack has a blossoming relationship with Allie (Anya Taylor-Joy), one of the residents of the nearby town. It’s the dramatic side where the film really shines, and it starts to lose its greatness when it strays into a more cliched ghost story. There’s a moment when Jack’s sister is signing documents, forging her mother’s signature, that’s tenser than any single moment of horror in the rest of the film.

George MacKay does a really good job carrying the film, even if his character does feel a little flat. Likewise Anya Taylor-Joy is really good in every scene that she’s in. The only one who is built up is the lawyer, Tom Porter (Kyle Soller), who feels more complete than everyone else on screen. He’s slimy and untrustworthy. The performances are all really great and it masks the small amount you actually know about the characters. Still, some of the more emotional moments later on don’t really hit as hard as they should, which is a real shame.

Late in the film there’s a twist that Shyamalan would be proud of. I genuinely didn’t see it coming at all, and it’s played out really well. It does what every good twist should do and make you think about all of the events leading up to that point and see them in a different light. It probably doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, but it packs a powerful punch when it’s first revealed.

Overall, The Secret of Marrowbone is a really solid horror. It does feel like a missed opportunity for being an even better drama, but it’s still memorable and engaging. The twist and great performances overshadow the negatives, even if they do stand out more as you think about it after the film ends.

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Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Volume 6 – Manga Review

Posted on July 4, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

The sixth volume of Zom 100 finds Akira having to choose between his dad being killed at the hands of the sadistic Kanta or turning himself into a zombie. Kanta is a pure psycho who wants to destroy the safe village and lets zombies take over, with Akira and co. defending the village at all costs. Kanta takes Akira’s father and offers to let him live in turn for Akira being bitten. It’s a tense opening to the volume that isn’t resolved straight away.

Instead, we get a small amount of backstory of the villains who are helping Kanta, which is pretty good. Their stories make sense and you do kind of understand how they have become twisted, by being naturally selfish, lazy and inconsiderate people. Their motives make sense, but at the same time there’s no part of the story that makes you want to come close to siding with them.

Around halfway through the volume we get a resolution to the current story arc and then a bit of a breather while also setting up the next one. The last couple of volumes have been following the storyline ‘Hometown of the Dead’ where Akira has come home to find his parents. It’s been a really strong arc and thankfully this volume delivers a really strong ending to it. The next arc looks like it will also be really great as well.

I’m really enjoying this series so far. The characters are fantastic and you do genuinely care about them. There’s a lot of really funny moments, with the manga being an all-out comedy with a lot of heart. At the moment there is Netflix live-action adaptation in the works, and hopefully that does the manga series. I’m looking forward to reading the next volumes as soon as I can.

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Pluto, Volume 1 – Manga Review

Posted on July 3, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki is based on the ‘The Greatest Robot on Earth’ story arc of the legendary and highly influential Astro Boy. Urasawa and Nagasaki took the relatively short story, and turned it into a cyberpunk noir that deals with the themes of what it means to be human, artificial intelligence, and murder. Instead of the story being a playful action story, it’s instead told as a mystery thriller. After Mont Blanc, one of the most renowned robots in the world, is murdered and torn apart, inspector Gesicht is tasked with finding out who would be capable of destroying such a powerful robot. Gesicht is also a robot, with a human like appearance, and is struggling with his own thoughts on life and value.

People don’t quite see that the robots are just as real as any human. When a robot policeman is destroyed on the job, the force throw his body away in a dumpster, leaving Gesicht to fish out his remains to present something to the robot’s grieving wife. It’s moments like this where Pluto really shines, when there’s a darkness in the story. It’s reminiscent of Blade Runner, and also feels like it must have been an ispiration on Detroit: Become Human.

The story, at least in the first volume, follows Gesicht as he investigates the murder of Mont Blanc as well as a human activist, following clues and trying to decide if it was a human or a robot that was behind it. Robots are built to not harm humans, but there have been instances where they have broken the code and killed. There’s a really creepy moment, similar to Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs, where Gesicht sees a robot who previously killed a human to get insight on what’s happening now.

Tonally this book is sombre and dark. All of the people in the story are struggling with their own lives and even though the world is presented as an almost futuristic utopia (besides the ongoing murders) there’s a sense that most people are lost. There’s a composer who isn’t able to create work, Gesicht is married but isn’t able to spend enough time at home, there’s a robot who was built to destroy other robots in war but has nightmares of everything that’s happened. There’s a lot of darkness.

I have long considered Naoki Urasawa’s Monster to be my favourite manga of all time. It’s a very dark and twisted murder story, that I absolutely loved from the first chapter. Pluto is so good in the first volume that is may overtake Monster. There are 8 volumes of Pluto and I’ve had the first 2 for a long time, and will be getting the rest as soon as possible. It’s a highly gripping and engrossing story and I can’t recommend it enough.

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Other Things I’ve Been Up To

Posted on July 2, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

It’s been an odd week for me, I’ve only been at work for 2 days, so it’s been quiet and quick. Originally on the Monday just gone I was supposed to be seeing Foo Fighters, but that was cancelled and I had Monday and Tuesday off for that. Back to work Wednesday and Thursday but off Friday as my rotation day off. It feels like the week has absolutely flown by and I don’t really know what I’ve done with it.

Today we finally got to watch something on Paramount Plus that wasn’t Cheers. For those that didn’t read last week’s post, I signed up for Paramount Plus, but the app doesn’t work on my TV very well. Anything I load up just has an endless spinning circle and then an error message. For some reason Cheers works though. Today we managed to watch the documentary: Oasis Knebworth 1996. Which I thought was really good, showing some footage of the band at the shows, while also having fans talking about their experiences of getting tickets, travelling to the event, and the gig itself. Star Trek still won’t load on Paramount Plus though, which was the reason I signed up in the first place – maybe one day.

Before that I spent a good portion of Friday in the back garden, which we had let get a little overgrown and messy. I don’t like gardening, never have and probably never will, but it was just getting too messy. It took about 90 minutes in total, as it’s a pretty big and very steep garden. It looks presentable now, but I know it’ll grow back again quicker than I’d like it to.

More generally I’ve been reading John G Dyer’s latest book, ‘Elbert’, which I’ve been enjoying. I was struggling to read after being ill earlier in the year and it’s taken me far longer to read this book that I’d like, but I am finally getting into the full swing of it. I’m around half way and expect to have it finished in the next few days. I’m also hoping to get some of my own writing done. I realise that I haven’t published ‘Teddy’ on here, which I finished writing close to a year ago. I just wanted to change the ending slightly, which I will do later this week.

I don’t really have any plans for which films I’ll be watching and reviewing over the next few days. I know Thor is out this week, and I will be watching that one day one (already have my tickets booked), but I’m not sure beyond that. It will probably just be watching older films that I’ve wanted to see for a while.

That’s all from me for now. Thanks for reading and until next time,

Ashley

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The Princess – Film Review

Posted on July 1, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Le-Van Kiet

Writers: Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton

Starring: Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko, Veronica Ngo

Rating: ★★

The Princess gives us a new and bloody spin on the traditional fairy tale wedding. Joey King stars as The Princess who wakes up at the top of her castle’s tower, as it is being attacked by Julius (Dominic Cooper) and his army. The Princess starts to escape and takes on Julius’s army while trying to free her family. He’s attacking since he was due to marry the princess, who rejected him at the altar and he wants to claim the throne for his own.

To sum up the rest of the plot it is essentially the princess taking on wave after wave of bad guys as she makes her way down the tower to her family. It’s a pretty thin plot, with a few flashbacks to explain the princess isn’t a walking stereotype and why she knows how to fight. Joey King does a great job with the fighting and action, which is very entertaining to watch. There’s a surprising amount of blood and brutality throughout, which looks convincing. Because of the endless amount of fighting, even though it may be light on story, the film’s definitely not boring.

The rest of the effects and sets do feel like something out of a ‘made-for-TV’ special from the mid-2000s. If you took the sets, weapons, or costumes, they would feel right at home in something like Merlin. It just looks a little cheap, especially some of the CGI which already feels dated. The violence looks good, but the same can’t be said for almost everything else. It almost like it’s trying to be an edgy children’s show.

Outside of the main plot there is very little time spent building the characters. The princess (if she’s given an actual name, I can’t remember it and couldn’t find it after a quick search online. In the credits she’s listed as ‘The Princess’) is built up to be essentially a very skilled fighter, who wants to be a warrior rather than the future queen. Julius is a power-hungry mad man who just wants power and control. Dominic Cooper gives a really hammy performance, that is more funny than sinister and that’s probably a good thing.

At its heart it’s about choosing your own destiny, following the tradition of stories like Mulan. It does a decent job at telling that story, even though it’s been done before. Thankfully some great fighting makes it an entertaining easy watch, although probably not one you’ll remember long after it’s over.

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