User reviews

Adam Green, the upstart horror fan boy filmmaker behind Frozen and the Hatchet movies, directs this mockumentary about his love of monsters and how it leads to a strange old man called Decker (Ray Wise of Twin Peaks and Jeepers Creepers 2). Green plays himself as himself, not as a cartoonish parody as he did on his now defunct TV series Holliston. And we follow Green and his trusty cameraman as they record Decker's ramblings about the secret, subterranean society of monsters that lives beneath our world. Decker (a name presumably referencing David Cronenberg's legendary monster hunter from Clive Barker's Nightbreed) even claims to have found an entrance to this other world, a hole in the ground near a cemetery which he calls the Marrow.

Digging Up the Marrow is a fast paced, entertaining little movie that functions as a sort of subversion of the done to death found footage sub genre. But that also brings me to my main problem with the movie. I just am not sure what Adam Green intended to do here.

By playing himself, and having several other notable genre names cameo as themselves, people like Kane Hodder and Tom Holland, it seems that he wants to blur the lines between fact and fiction. However, by casting recognizable character actor Ray Wise as the fictional character at the center of all this, he completely ruins the illusion making it obvious from the start that this is wholly a work of fiction. So why make the movie in this fashion? I honestly have no idea.

But, I did enjoy watching the movie and Green does manage to prove at least two things here. The first is that he actually can "act" although he is playing himself, he plays himself as a likable, slightly awkward dreamer whose desperation to believe leads him down a rabbit hole into increasingly dangerous situations. The second is his wholehearted and rather admirable dedication to practical special effects. There is no cheesy CG here and what you see is obviously tangible and quite well designed to boot. Digging in the Marrow may feel a tad disposable, more like a time killing side project than a true feature, but it's still more entertaining and engaging than a lot of low budget crap out there. So check it out and have a good time.

Adam Green would probably better off making Hatcher 4 or actual documentary of his work. Digging Up The Marrow is an average found footage film with reliance of authenticity as film makers find an odd conspiracy theory. It gets a bit too meta with inside joke and backstage production, but there isn't much excitement since more than half of the content is simple bantering. What few scares it has are only half effective and numbingly too late.

Plot involves a real production house, they are called by a strange old man claiming that he has seen another world filled with monsters. Adam Green and his colleagues investigate this story with generous amount of interviews and vague camera shots. Since it's a mockumentary, genuine reaction might contribute more, but as the story progresses the yelling and debating become stale incredibly fast. Script is more true to life, yet it's often too sporadic to form any suspense.

The better part of the film is behind-the-scene features. It's nice to see more of the assembly parts of filmmaking, be that artistic design, editing process or a few nit bits from comic-con. Whereas the horror plot isn't that appealing or convincing in any way. Unfortunately, there is hefty amount of the playtime that's allocated for this horror tale which lacks real tension. There are a couple of good moments, but even those are expected gimmick other found footage films have already done, and ironically the film itself is aware of this.

Camera work is not great, it predictably uses first person view or some manners of CCTV. The most agonizing part of this subgenre, shots in the dark and shaky cam are also presented here. Although some of the effects could build the atmosphere, but halfway point after hearing multiple banters the film becomes tedious.

If it's a complicated way to show passion for the work, there has to be better ways to convey that message. A montage of authentic production from old films would be more fascinating than pseudo horror like this.

This was honestly a very different type of film. I am not very conversant with Adam Green's films (I surely PLAN to become that way though...) so I didn't really know what to expect.

Since I usually look at movies from the standpoint of 'film making', I think that I can see what he was trying to do with this one. A very unusual approach indeed... I think what I liked about it (other than the bloody FANTASTIC Ray Wise, of course) is the change in tone as you watch it. At the beginning it actually is quite funny and as the 'Trivia' section mentions, the entire film was very carefully scripted, although it does NOT come across that way at all. So, with that in mind, I really appreciated the genuine and natural humour that he drew out of the movie, especially with many of his own reactions to what was being said by others. He is really funny. But, I liked that as you became more engrossed in the story and began to see Adam's interest in the reality of the stories he was being told have an effect on him, I really liked the change in tone as things got more serious. I very much liked that and thought that they did an excellent job in switching gears, as it were...

Whether you suspend disbelief enough to become invested in the story or not, I truly found the film in it's entirety to be very entertaining. A LOT of the entertainment value come from Adam's own life and real friends and family being portrayed and his excellent interaction with them when talking about this 'Project'. Most of the rest of the entertainment value comes directly from the always awesome Ray Wise. He was frigg'n GREAT the whole way, in my lowly and wretched opinion. His VERY subtle turns at absolute DEADPAN humour were totally hilarious! And Adam's reaction to them was just as great. As far as the actual story being told and the 'Documentary' approach, sure, if you have an active imagination like I do, you can get caught up in that too...

I think that people who automatically dismiss the film because Ray Wise, a very well known actor, is in it, are missing the point of the movie. As mentioned in the 'Trivia' section here, they REALLY agonized on whether to use someone well known as the main guy or not. But, after giving it a lot of thought and getting audience's reactions, they realized that to approach the movie as a fully genuine 'True' story and then LATER likely disappoint the audience or make them feel 'fooled' was something that they did not want to do, as some other 'Mockumentaries' have fallen victim to. So, this way, the audience KNOWS right from the start that it is fiction, but at the same time by cleverly using Adam and his family and friends as REAL people along with their choice of Ray Wise, they came up with a very unique and interesting balance for this kind of movie.

So, this is quite honestly an EXTREMELY difficult film to recommend to people in general. As you can see from the many varied reviews here, that the reactions are truly all OVER the place. I personally think that if you are a film maker yourself, OR if you look at films from a film maker or director's perspective, OR if you have a real love and affection for the Horror Genre itself, THEN you will have a much greater chance at really enjoying this unique and entertaining film.

a documentary-style found footage film by the writer/director of Holliston and the Hatchet slasher series. i'd heard good things about the monster design and make-up, but wasn't very impressed. the monsters get only a few seconds a piece of shaky-camera screen time and are actually pretty cartoonishly goofy-looking if you pause on them

the movie suffers a bit from the shaky camera syndrome typical of its genre — there's a point where the crew is sitting in the woods at night, waiting for a monster to appear, and when one of them points to a shape moving through the trees, the camera guy focuses literally everywhere but where the character is pointing. i can only imagine it was done on purpose to parody the genre style, and the actors were laughing about it behind the scenes

the story is imaginative and compelling, and Ray Wise, as detective William Dekker who invites director Adam Green to witness and record proof of the existence of monsters, is a great actor and storyteller. my favourite scenes are the ones where Adam and the film crew are just sitting in Dekker's house, recording his stories of past encounters with and illustrations of monsters from a subterranean metropolis he calls The Marrow

i like the film despite it's flaws and wouldn't mind a sequel picking up exploration, where this one ends rather abruptly, of The Marrow and its inhabitants. recommended for fans of found footage monster movies

A documentary exploring genre based monster art takes an odd turn when the filmmakers are contacted by a man (Ray Wise) who claims he can prove that monsters are indeed real.

At first, the concept of a monster documentary is good and the first few minutes are really enjoyable. The footage of asking convention guests about monsters seems genuine, and it could have been a story worth pursuing if a narrative could be built around the interviews.

But once we shift, it becomes obvious that casting Ray Wise is the biggest mistake. Rue Morgue said it (and then let it slide). Aaron Christensen came down hard on Adam Green for this. I am somewhere between the two. I think the concept is really clever, and my admiration for Green lets me be a bit more open-minded. But there really is no getting around it: Wise, who is incredible in this role, simply cannot be anyone other than Ray Wise in a "documentary".

We also learn that Mick Garris is a terrible actor. That should probably come as no surprise, but it is amusing to see that Garris cannot even play Mick Garris for less than five minutes without goofing it up.

TL;DR: 3/4 self promotion of director Adam Green and his other works. 1/4 lazy adaptation of Clive Barker's "Nightbreed"

This was a mess. The only saving grace of this movie is the amazing artwork/ creature design of the incredibly talented Alex Pardee. Oh and Ray Wise was pretty great. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to make the film enjoyable.

There is literally a montage of Green signing autographs... The beginning of the film is supposed to be meaningful. He gets lots of horror celebs to give a short testimonial about their love of the horror genre. But it is really just a montage of Green showing off his connections. This movie screams "Oh look at me! Aren't I cool? I have tons of fans and know lots of famous people."

Half the movie is just Adam and friends wearing t-shirts from his movies surrounded by posters of his movies with a computer screensaver of his movies... Absolutely shameless. There are so many inconsistencies in tone because Green can't stick to the narrative and just has to keep shamelessly showing off and self-promoting.

If he wanted to make an effective mockumentary, he should've cast other actors and left himself out of the spotlight. But he just couldn't help himself. This is a vanity project wearing the guise of a horror film.

Adam Green has always seemed like a hack to me. This film further solidifies that feeling. He comes across as a self-important egomaniac. In interviews he always defends the plot holes and lazy filmmaking decisions of his movies with circular reasoning and 4th wall tapping. Dude, just because you make a self-deprecating joke about portions of your movie or personality, does NOT give you an excuse to keep using lazy scripts and have a sloppy attention to detail.

What a waste of Ray Wise and Alex Pardee...

good movie, even if it is a total ripoff from Clive Barkers Nightbreed, right down to some of the characters and names, Decker. With that said i did really enjoy the movie and hope he makes a follow up. Especially with the found film/first person camera horror has been so overdone ove the last 15 years or so. I've watched his other movies and was pretty disappointed overall, they are watchable but pretty unrealistic and again most of his characters and plots are blatantly stolen from other works and B lister both in acting and plot. But if you like the cheesy horror genre they are worth watching. It would be really great to see if he can come up with something completely original in the future.

This is a film I have been wanting to see for a while now. I hadn't even seen a trailer, just read the story line and it sounded amazing. When I finally found it, I was excited and even watched the trailer just to make sure it was going to be worth watching. The trailer was awesome and I was ready to dive right in.

Unfortunately, everything in the trailer is pretty much all the great moments in this movie.

With such an awesome story idea I was greatly disappointed that the deliver wasn't as good. In fact, the film relied to heavy on plot and story line that I think it forgot it was a horror film. In fact the music used in the movie was cheesy and reminded me of a romantic comedy score.

The biggest problem with this film is the Director/Writer Adam Green, not that he didn't write or direct a good film, it was that he starred in it and was the most obnoxious character I have seen on film in the past ten years (and that includes ALL of Will Farrell's films in the last ten years).

I really felt that Adam Green had such a great idea, something unique even though the story line itself is not all that original, but the idea was wasted. Throughout the whole film I kept thinking that this was nothing more than a huge advertisement for his other films, especially his TV show on FearNet which was said about a thousand times in this film.

I won't say it's a complete waste of time, in fact when the scary moments happen, and they are far and few in between, it was interesting and fun to watch. The rest of it however, was annoying and boring. Such a wasted opportunity.

I would like to a sequel, something that would follow the horror aspect of the story line a lot more. There is just so much more this film could have given us and instead wasted the whole time promoting his other movies. The ending left me wanting more and not in a good way.

-Digging Up The Marrow (2015) movie review: -This mockumentary follows a filmmaker who meets a man who claims he can prove 'monsters' exist.

-I think mockumentaries are either more fun documentaries or more fun found footage films. Either way, Digging Up The Marrow kept me from sleeping, sooo….

-The story is presents just like any of the shows about finding Bigfoot or whatever. So even though it may seem like a cliché film premise, it is presented in a way that seems like it is going to be the same as all the others. It kinda is, but it admits it is.

-The pace was fine. I did not get bored.

-None of the acting from the unknown cast was memorable or great, but I did not think anybody was bad. Especially having seen some of those monster quest shows.

-There was not a lot of music, but whenever there was music, it almost broke the fourth wall because there should not be music in mockumentary/found footage films.

-The practical effects in the film are impressive. And that was what the entire film was banking on, so I was not let down. The film also banks on a few pretty cliché jumpscares, but there are some unconventional scares that were effective.

-My biggest beef with the movie is, and I won't spoil anything, the old guy's idea of the monsters. Basically this sorta-crazy Scooby-Doo villain claims that all monsters are made of social rejects and people who had birth defects and deformities. Basically he thinks there is a big underground society (called The Marrow) of them not. That premise really unsettles me. Because it is one thing to just have the idea of monsters, but it is another to have the idea of formerly deformed people underground. Makes it creepy to me, but not in a great way.

-Digging Up The Marrow had a few things going against it, such as its overall cliché premise and unimpressive elements, but the film is successfully creepy and unsettling. I felt like this film had an amount of effectiveness to it, and therefore I will say that Digging Up The Marrow is worth watching on Nexflix. (Not worth paying for, but worth seeing.) -It holds a PG-13 rating for some scary images and some language. Nothing too heavy.

On paper it would be easy to write off Adam Green's 'Digging Up the Marrow' as being shameless self-promotion and yet another forgettable entry in the redundant found-footage genre. But it's actually very entertaining, witty and fairly creepy.

Adam Green, the director of 'Frozen' and 'Hatchet', is contacted by a man who claims that he can prove to Adam that monsters are real, are in fact living in a metropolis beneath the earth, and that he has found one of the entrances to this world. Adam and his crew agree to meet with him and to film a documentary, because Adam, in the Agent Mulder tradition, Wants to Believe. The man, who claims to be an ex-Boston police officer, turns out to be a bit of nutcase, and very scrupulous about how Adam and his cameraman conduct themselves out in the woods around the entrance to this monster world.

Must say I had a great time watching this. Some very funny scenes and it was cleverly delivered by Green and co. Ray Wise was simply brilliant and was an interesting character. I found something really appealing about the film, the vibe it had that gave it the feel of a real cheap, personal project, Ed Wood style. I can see this becoming a Halloween favourite of mine.

This was.... OK even though it did seem like night breed by Clive barker. The acting I was surprised about, it was fairly good. I'm not normally the one to watch these "cam recorded" type films but this one actually did do justice in my books. It felt real.... Until the supposed "monsters" started to appear. The monsters kind of ruined it and I feel as though they could have done better with realism. I'm less inclined to believe the existence of a tentacle man with a potato sack over his head or.... A walking meatball that screams. I think this film is something that can only be watched once even though it is good for a cam film.

This is a horror flick, taking the road of a fake documentary (mockumentary) that's all about the plot.

The whole thought put into making the overall Marrow structure kinda amazed me. While watching, even though you're not thrilled or anything, you're deep curious to know what's going to be the outcome of all that.

Acting is regular, nothing special. Also, I liked that they went down the practical effects road. Even though it's pretty obvious that the effects are cheap, I like that feeling you get while seeing someone in rubber costumes and go full "aaah, practical effects all the way"! (It's way better than seeing bad CGI).

There're some jump scares here and there, but that's about it; it's all about the story indeed.

The attempt to look like a real documentation got me for about time, until an actor appears, that is presented as a former police officer. I must admit, that the style got me for a few minutes. But it wasn't completely bad from that point. I liked how the story developed. It's a sake that this story doesn't fill 1 and half an hour. It's kept short and that makes it more taut. After all it is not the worst idea horror movie makers had over the decades.

Going into this I knew nothing about the movie or Adam Greene but I'm glad this could introduce me to him. It's kind of a semi documentary about him and making movies and at the same time a found footage monster movie. The monster effects are great and I love the lore behind each of the creatures. The main guy Adam is interviewing in this that discovered the monsters is the best part of the movie, I find him so funny and you can never really tell if he's lying or telling the truth, I do kinda wish we got more solid answers about that guys back story. I felt like the ending was kind of rushed but other than that this movie is a really good time.

In Clive Barker's NIGHTBREED, we were introduced to an entire underground civilization; in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, we viewed what was purported to be "found footage" of a missing group of young filmmakers gone in search of a legendary witch; combine these ideas (being careful not to inject any much-needed humor or originality) and what you end up with is DIGGING UP THE MARROW. I actually thought FROZEN was a fairly decent effort (if boring, when it came to the soap opera stuff), but this one had the potential to be something really interesting- but, again, the WRITING gets in the way. It's amateurish, to be frank- unpolished, to be kind; laughable, to be perfectly honest. If this were a project for a filmmaking class, one could kinda sorta overlook the embarrassingly amateurish script... but this isn't a school project, nor is it a first time effort: it's yet another go at commercial filmmaking by filmmakers who've done it before. From the looks of things, they're not learning from their mistakes.

For those of us who love monster flicks, we live in hope that Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster are real...despite the lack of hard evidence to-date.

Digging up the Marrow taps into the film makers life-long passion for monsters and his hope that they may in fact, exist.

You'll need to embrace the shaky cam footage that are present in a lot of the scenes and bear with the ever burning questions that seem to go unanswered throughout about Mr Decker. For me, that's what sucked me in to this movie.. the build up, the unanswered questions and anticipation of 'what if'... Don't expect a masterpiece but do expect the unexpected: this movie was quite unique in lots of ways, but of course also had a degree of predictability with other elements.

All of that said, this movie is really enjoyable. There are a few twists and turns that give those of us who live in hope about monsters being real and great ride and for that, I gave it a decent rating.

The low budget didn't fail to deliver some great scenes and you want to see this film through to it's finale. The final third of the piece was pretty well delivered and the well-paced build up takes you to a confronting place.

Are monsters real? You be the judge.

As a horror fan I was really excited when I saw the trailer for this film. Now that I've seen it, I am so let down. The creatures (what few there were) looked pretty good. Other than that, it's basically an arduously long, annoying set up for all of one or two scene's worth of action by a self important director who REALLY likes to hear himself talk. The only thing more irritating about this film than Adam Green's presence and his insatiable need to talk over every person in the film, is the bromance between he and his camera man. Do yourself a favor and just look at Alex Pardee's artwork on your own. It will be a much more productive use of your time.

Of Clive Barkers Night Breed its so boring till the last twenty mins or so must admit genuinely funny in parts though

Jesus! I was dumb to enough to watch this movie as of 25/3/15 cause it was 6/10 stars rated.What i didn't look into was the age of people that voted. Yeah all under 18. No i wasn't expecting that this movie was going to be something good, just something to watch and eat pizza, but now really, this is the WORST movie i 've ever watched. Boring boring boring..... Really boring..Nothing happens the first 60minutes, and then the last 30 minutes you see some not B not C but some D quality monsters appear. No its not the low budget, its the lack of creativity that destroyed this movie, and of course the director or talentless actor or writer or whatever he thinks he is. If you are going to watch it, just find the FF key on your controller.

Any easy 7/10. A worthwhile view into the life of a horror film director. In the film, Green pays homage to horror greats, the likes of Mick Garris(The Stand, Masters Of Horror), Tom Holland(Child's Play), Don Coscarelli(Phantasm) and Stanley Lloyd Kaufman(The Toxic Avenger). Also we have Kane Hodder who has played a lot of monster type roles for example he played Jason Vorhees in Friday the 13th Part VII, Jason X and Metalbeast in Project: Metalbeast and lastly Victor Crowley in the Hatchet films.

Here Adam Green makes a documentary type film about a man who says he has determined the whereabouts of an underground society of monsters or mutants. The man William Dekker an retired private investigator, says he discovered the monsters accidentally, and from thereon, he developed a relationship or understanding between them. These monsters have spared Dekker's life under the condition that he reveals his secret to no one.

He breaks this cardinal rule by telling Adam Green, who wants to capture one of these amazing creatures on film for the whole world to see. So one day, he and Dekker go by car to scout one of the locations where the creatures are to be seen. On the first occasion, Dekker spots a creature and immediately tells Green to look in that particular direction. However Green sees nothing. Later on, on a second attempt, they really capture a creature on film.

He shows the footage to Kane Hodder. Hodder is skeptical an professes that it is just a normal person wearing special make-up. However Green does not agree, and wishes to further explore the creatures domain.

Watch the film to find out what happens next! More Monster Films: Brain Damage 1988, Frankenhooker 1990, The Basket Case Trilogy(1982-1990-1991), The Relic 1997, Bad Moon 1996, Silver Bullet 1985, Graveyard Shift 1990, The Thing 1982, Shadowzone 1990, From Beyond 1986, Fright Night 1985, The Re-Animator Trilogy(1985-1989-2003), The Unamable Duology 1988-1992, Pumpkinhead Quadrilogy, Alien Quadrilogy, Predator 1-2, The Fly(original and remakes), Nightbreed, Nightflyers, Hellraiser Quadrilogy, Phantasm Quadrilogy, A Nightmare On Elm Street(1-6), Friday The 13th(1-10), Halloween(1-5). There are many more out there, I can't name them all...

Phew! Thank you for reading this review, may you live long and prosper. And good luck to you Adam Green, may you continue to make great films for us.

I'm a little torn on this one. On one hand it's very well made, everything looks very authentic. Well, except from the fact that one very important role is filled by a rather well known actor.

Because you see: this is made like a documentary (mocumentary if you will), and it is very well made. It is pretty believable and "realistic"-looking. Alright, you get that this is a scripted movie, but you sort of forget it from time to time, too. So good job on that, movie!

I didn't find it scary, and there are not that many parts that are meant to be scary either. But I would still have liked a little more horror. As a matter of fact, the parts where stuff goes down, I think they could have been a lot better. Seems kind of random.

Most of the cast plays themselves, and they do an overall good job. To sum up: nothing great, but a pretty easy watch.

The ABSOLUTE worst part of this nonsense show was how EVERYBODY is wearing movie swag t-shirts. This is definitely a small time studio hoping for some buzz. Also, wives in documentaries are POINTLESS AF! Nobody wants to hear/see the whining.

I connect with this a lot more personally simply because of the connections it had to the Horror Convention life & atmosphere through some of it... Of course, I feel it is pretty interesting to me, personally, however; I think it draws out a lil bit too much in the middle and doesn't REALLY get super exciting till about the last 20 minutes. I DO really dig most of the ending... It does leave some un-answered questions & I'll say, due to this it may not be for everyone... It's a bit Blair Witch-esque in the sense that it has such a slow build & unfortunately, that can make it a harder watch for the average public.

This is a somewhat conventional approach to found footage but also contained enough unconventional elements to keep me interested. The creature designs were fantastic and Ray Wise was phenomenally good as the unhinged monster hunter. The integration of the story within the real world of horror film production was an interesting touch injecting realism to the far fetched events. The very effective dread-building was frequently sacrificed for a cheap jump scare and the overall escalation of events felt like a well trodden path in this genre. There were many story aspects which seemed key but were left unaddressed which came off as sloppy rather than a creative choice, but in spite of the flaws, I found it to be an effective and somewhat unique attempt at the genre, which definitely held my attention.