THE PUPPETMASTER // A FILM REVIEW OF "MARIONETTE"
MARIONETTE starts out with a bang, showing us a man on a roof, speaking to himself (presumably) and when he can't take it anymore, he lights himself on fire. After that fiery start, we follow his replacement, Marianne Winter (Thelka Reuten), a children's therapist restarting her life in Scotland and far away from her American memories haunting her present. She's drawn to starting a new life and even joins the local book club as a way of possibly getting to know a handsome local named Kieran (Emun Elliott). She dives into her work and one new patient really catches her attention: a young boy named Manny (Elijah Wolf).
Manny draws dark pictures and tells her that he can predict the future. Her future specifically. He tells her things like that there's a gun in her drawer. Later, she finds that there is indeed a gun there. Did he predict that it would be there, or did Marianne make it appear there because she looked in that drawer to check? Is he controlling her and others around her? Strange and odd things begin to happen around her and this young troubled child begins to seem more and more dangerous as the days go on. The cat and mouse game between them is intense and creepy, all the more unsettling as it's between an adult and a child. Her past that she's hoping to forget keeps creeping into the picture and causes even more darkness to surround her.
Director (and co-writer) Elbert van Strien captures a thrilling and unsettling mood here, juggling a lot of balls and rarely dropping them (the book club subplot doesn't quite work and some narration is distracting). Reuten is a great fit here, playing the unreliable narrator and showcasing a lot of depth within the frames of this horror film. Her striking stare tells a story within itself and she handles the unraveling of Marianne with ease. Her chemistry with young actor Wolf is very strong and Wold himself plays the creepiness quite well, never going overboard and hitting all the right notes. Overall MARIONETTE is a smart, beautifully shot (can more films be set in Scotland please?) thrilling horror film, one that is smarter than the average film but is still accessible and downright creepy.
GRADE: B+
WRITTEN BY Ben Hopkins, Elbert van Strien DIRECTED BY Elbert van Strien STARRING Thelka Reuten, Elijah Wolf, Emun Elliott, Sam Hazeldine NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND.