Anyone who saw Sergio G. Sánchez’s well-regarded psychological ghost story The Orphanage will know what to expect from his latest offering as writer/director. Set in the rural gothic heartland of late 1960s America, The Secret of Marrowbone is a creepy, claustrophobic exercise that builds its mystery well and is frequently gorgeous to look at but ultimately feels like an aperitif for a main course that should have been much tastier.
A mother leaves Britain with her four children and moves to America, where they set up residence in her childhood home (the eponymous Marrowbone). She wants the family to rebuild their lives and leave the past behind, and before she dies she makes her eldest son Jack promise to keep his brothers and sister together inside the house, not revealing her death until he turns 21 and is legally able to care for them. The siblings manage to keep their mother’s passing a secret for several months but, when Jack falls in love with a local girl named Allie and attempts to arrange transfer of the house, Marrowbone’s haunted past is stirred up yet again. Between a ghost in the attic and some cursed money their mother took from their father, sinister events escalate. The siblings have always believed their abusive father is dead and bricked up behind the wall, so is he the spectre the youngest brother sees inside a mirror? Or is their father actually alive, and plotting his revenge? When the town lawyer becomes suspicious and blackmails Jack to get his hands on the family fortune, the Marrowbone secret fractures in the grimmest, most macabre way possible.
It’s hard to write a proper synopsis of The Secret of Marrowbone because, like many good ghost stories (or is it a ghost story?), if you pull on the wrong thread the whole thing starts to unravel. What doesn’t cause Marrowbone to unravel are some fine central performances, especially George MacKay as Jack and The Witch’s Anya Taylor-Joy as Allie (whose performance is so good that the film seemed to slow down every time she leaves the screen) but, although it’s certainly heavy on atmosphere, The Secret of Marrowbone telegraphs too many of its scares to be properly unsettling. It has all the trappings this kind of excursion needs, but Sánchez has forgotten one thing – the most effective ghost stories are also very, very simple. Unfortunately, there’s so much going on here that the whole melange becomes slightly confused, and when the big reveal arrives it’s not really much of a surprise. In fact, most seasoned horror fans will probably see the twist coming after the first act.
Still, it looks great, the cast is solid, and you might find yourself glancing nervously over your shoulder at least once or twice during the couple of hours it takes to unfold. With a few less ingredients, this could have been something special… a bit like The Orphanage, which also badly over-egged its pudding.
THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: SERGIO G. SÁNCHEZ / STARRING: GEORGE MACKAY, ANYA TAYLOR-JOY, CHARLIE HEATON, MIA GOTH / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 19TH
