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This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I rented The Marsh because I enjoy a good Gabrielle Anwar film. Actually, those are few and far between -- the truth is I'll watch anything she's in. I must say this is better than most of the movies she's done (likely thanks to the absence of Craig Sheffer).Her character was well defined and complex, but she seemed more curious than frightened. It made sense when she spoke about how fairy tales are supposed to give kids the willies, and that's what kids like - I had a copy of Der Struwwelpeter when I was a kid - but this film wasn't really scary or anything much more than creepy.I had braced myself for the worst, and was waiting for one of the two clichéd scenes, you know the wizened old man who says "you don't know what you're dealing with here'" or the abrasive and skeptical sheriff / authority figure who knows more than he lets on. So it was refreshing when Whittaker's character moved the plot along as quickly as it did.The opening scene was marvelous, and the scene with her therapist could have been great with some smoother editing, but the flashlight in the dark videography is worthless. The death scenes are waaay cheesy. In the end, I'd say the director pulled it off, but it was touch and go there for a while.All in all, this was a (bad) B movie, but with just enough sunk into the production to make it halfway decent.

Over the past few years I have despaired of the horror genre. All of the recent films have been sick, over the top and unnecessarily gross (House of Wax etc). I grew up with the Carpenter movies where shocks and scares were important. This film is a refreshing change, yes its slow, yes its subtle but the important thing is it is scary! Claire Holloway is a likable protagonist. A children's book author haunted by vicious night terrors. She is told to face the source by her psychologist. She then sees a documentary that includes a shot of the house in her dreams. Claire is played with feeling and maturity by Gabrielle Anwar, whom obviously enjoyed the script and filming. Hunt is the stereo typical character of the piece. When his Wife and Son died he plunges himself into the research of the paranormal. Forest Whitacker is obviously intrigued by this film but not so much to give one of his most stellar performances. In fact if you compare his portrayal of Hunt to his character in Species, they are pretty much the same. The shooting of the film is excellent, the cgi ghost effects start subtly and build up nicely, the photography hits the right visual cues and the score adds to the tension and visual elements without giving away any clues as to what is about to happen. The only negative I have would give away some of the plot so you'll have to guess. If you liked House of Wax or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre do not watch this movie! However if you enjoy sitting round a campfire trying to scare your friends this is for you.

When I first sat down to watch this movie, I had the notion that it would be something that would not be that good. Just looking at the ratings, I knew that I probably would be telling myself at the end of it that "I just wasted time on this!" Well, all I can say is that I knew what I was going to say, and I ended up saying it.The first thing that I would like to say is that I pretty much would consider the title of this movie to be "The Rose Door", being that very little of what happened to any of the central characters in this movie actually happened in the marsh and it all happened behind the Rose door.So, on to the story. To sum up the story, basically it the classic ghost story that tries to through in a few twists in the mix. I won't go into great detail about the story, just to say that it is about Claire Holloway, performed by Gabrielle Anwar, who is hunted by nightmares and feels the need to find out clues to what is going on in these nightmares. She sees a house in her dreams and decides to investigate it. This is how she ends up in a small town at the house from her dreams, which happens to have a marsh as it's front yard. Of course she tries to make sense of the things going on in the house, so she goes to Geoffry Hunt, played by Forrest Whitaker, who just so happens to be a paranormal expert of sorts. No matter how good of an actor Whitaker is, I just could not see him as a paranormal expert so I was already somewhat mystified by his casting. This is where I will end my description because I don't want to give everything away, even though I do have to bring up some spoilers just to prove my point. To clarify my ratings though, I will point out a few things that I thought was lacking. First, the entire process of Claire finding out important events to the little girl's story seems to be a little drawn out. Usually, I'm all for a movie that wants to be thorough in this regard, but for me this movie seemed to want to force this feeling onto me and ended up failing miserably. Also, there was no tension in this movie, whatsoever. I mean, for a supposed horror movie, I believe tension is what can make or brake it. Having drawn out death scenes where the tension is built up is fine, but to not have any unexpected tension elsewhere in the movie will make it seem stale when death scenes do come around. The last thing that irritated me about this movie was that ending. Specifically, the scene with Geoffry, Claire, and Phillip getting the blanket back. I don't know if the writers or the director was trying to give any redeeming value to Phillip or Phillip's son or not, but here is my reasoning for being so upset about this scene. I felt they were trying to force me to be sorry for Phillip's family. Why would I feel sorry for this man who, not only knowing allowed his son to be brought up by a despicable mother in which he explained to them when he gave them blanket, but in some respect allowed his son to be a deviant in the first place? Was it not his son that killed the girl and stated that they should all just keep quite and let his father handle it? There had to be a reason the son thought he could go to daddy to clear things up.In the end, I wasn't disappointed by the acting. I would have given this movie a lower rating if it had not been for the decent acting. The visual effects, though sparse, where actually pretty good and weren't overly done. Other than the casting of Whitaker as previously mentioned, I thought the rest of the cast where believable.

I been getting very depressed with movies lately and decided to watch some horror flicks to lighten up my mood. And with sheer luck this movie lands on my lap and I read somewhere that is a classic story with a forgotten method of movie making. I now know why it was forgotten. Far be it for me to promote drug abuse but clearly this director needs to take something to boost his imagination. Poorly executed movie with a simple story plot that has a twist which was convulsed into a boring pile of yesterdays excrement that most likely got lodged in the toilet. Abusive use of sound effects and horrible sense of anticipation that pretty much puts anyone to sleep. To those that come across this movie I ware you run.. run fast and do not look back no matter what or who tells you how artistic this is. Chances are that the place that has this movie is pretty much a marsh that is sinking down to a bottomless pit.