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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 60782
Released: April 17, 2007 |
| Our Price: $3.39 |
| Used Price: $1.84 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Claire Holloway is a young, sophisticated author of a series of successful children's books. Her personal life, however is far from a storybook tale. Visions of violence and death haunt Claire. She is tortured by a darkness that seems to seep from the corners of her subconscious. In hopes of clearing her mind, Claire takes her doctor's advice to go on a sabbatical. She decides to stay at the Rose Marsh Farmhouse in the countryside, which looks suspiciously like the house she sees in her nightmares. Almost immediately upon arriving at the farmhouse, Claire is jarred by a series of escalating and unexplained happenings. She has plunged into a frightening world controlled by the ghost a ten year old girl the very girl that Claire has seen in her dreams many nights before. In her search for clarity, Claire is joined by Noah Pitney (Justin Louis), a charming and handsome publisher of the small town newspaper and by Hunt (Forest Whitaker) a paranormal consultant. Claire and Hunt start to unravel the village's dark secret.
Description of The Marsh:
The subtler scares work best in the Canadian-made chiller The Marsh, which stars a pre-Oscar Forest Whitaker as an investigator who aids an author in unraveling the mystery behind her terrifying dreams. Gabrielle Anwar plays the troubled writer, whose visions of a young girl in peril lead her to a remote town. There, the secret behind the disappearance of a local girl and boy--and Anwar's dreams--seem to be hidden behind the frightening façade of an abandoned house. Anwar and Whitaker are fine in their lead roles, but the film succeeds in raising the most gooseflesh when it tones down the blaring soundtrack and overwhelming barrage of special effects and concentrates on atmosphere and suspense. As it stands, The Marsh's mix of old-fashioned creeps and computer-generated flash is an uneven offering for horror fans. The DVD includes a behind-the-scenes featurette. -- Paul Gaita
The Marsh Reviews:
The Door... 
2009-02-12 - Claire Holloway (Gabrielle Anwar from Body Snatchers) is a children's book author haunted by recurring nightmares about a house, a little girl, and a marsh. She actually locates the house on the internet and soon moves into it! Strange occurances begin almost immediately, forcing Claire to seek the assistance of a paranormal investigator named Hunt (Forest Whitaker from Body Snatchers, Species, and Panic Room). The mystery deepens as the supernatural events intensify, leading to a final showdown between humans and the restless spirits. I was frequently reminded of POLTERGEIST and THE RING, but not enough to ruin things. Both Anwar and Whitaker have an authentic quality that helps in the suspension of disbelief. THE MARSH is a worthy addition to any ghost story collection...
Deffinitely worth owning!
2008-08-11 - It was not the best BUT no where near the worst. I really enjoyed it and would deffinitely watch it again with friends. I highly recommend buying this movie. The acting and script is excellent.
Lacks originality, yet atmospheric and creepy 
2008-07-16 - I had mixed feelings watching this movie. The Marsh is not an original horror movie as I kept comparing it to movies like Stir of Echoes, Dark Water etc as I watched it. That being said, it has an interesting though not remarkable premise, and is well-shot. Gabrielle Anwar [who seems to be in quite a few horror movies these days] plays a children's book author, Claire Holloway who keeps having disturbing nightmares about her childhood and events she no longer remembers as having occured. Upon seeing a familiar place on tv, she ventures out to a small town in Westmoreland County, Marshville, where she leases a house she finds disturbingly familiar.
It doesn't take long for Claire to encounter spooky entities and experience disturbing visions. She enlists the aid of a spook consultant, Geoffry Hunt [Forest Whitaker] and he helps her discover the truth behind Claire's visions. It appears that Claire's 'return' to the town of Marshville has unleashed supernatural entities that are seeking revenge for a tragedy long past and Claire is somehow in the center of it.
The effects are good for what I assume is a low-budget movie - the entities look creepy enough, and the scares are the usual blink and you'll miss it kind. The movie also has a sufficiently bleak and menacing atmosphere, especially in the scenes where the entities wreak havoc.
As for the acting, both Anwar as Claire and Whitaker as Hunt do a credible job with the script they are given, though I felt this role was far beneath Whitaker's talent [this movie was before The Last King of Scotland for which he deservedly won an Oscar].
True horror fans who feel they deserve better may not appreciate this as much, but I felt it was worth a rental and the story held my attention till the end.
The Swamp
2008-03-11 - The opening has our author reading to schoolchildren from her book, "The Swamp", surprisingly the movie is called "The Marsh". When the author finds out there is in fact a house like the one she saw in her dreams to write about in her book, things start to become spooky. She ends up finding and renting the house. Not long after a local newspaper man is interested in what she is doing in their town. Then a paranormal investigator joins her in exploring the odd events she is seeing at the house. A reasonably decent "Poltergeist" type thriller. Certainly worth at least a rental. Good DVD quality and decent replayability. Good for most the family. May cause nightmares for the small ones.
This has been done before... "Stir of Echoes" 
2008-03-03 - Anwar and Whittaker can't save this movie. Weak writing and old special effects don't help. This is just "Stir of Echoes" in a swamp and snow.
