Marshmallow review
A summer camp nightmare from the perspective of campers instead of counselors.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Marshmallow
Directed by Daniel DelPurgatorio
Written by Andy Greskoviak
Starring Kue Lawrence, Kai Cech, Max Malas, Sutton Johnston, Winston Vengapally, Dylan Friedman and Corbin Bernsen
Marshmallow Review
Marshmallow is a movie full of strange choices that inevitably make sense. Ostensibly, this is a summer camp slasher from the perspective of the campers. If I were to attach asterisks to those first two sentences…there’d be a few already. For starters…the slashing doesn’t involve much actual slashing. It’s more of a summer camp cattle prod movie. Given that and the focus on young campers…your mind may immediately race towards “gateway horror”. That would be a pretty good description of Marshmallow. Secondly, those strange choices shouldn’t be confused with “bad” choices. They feel like little plot holes…because we aren’t seeing the full plot when they happen. In fact, for slasher viewers who grew up on bad 80s slashers…the strange choices are kind of brilliant. That will make more sense as we dive into the movie.
Morgan (Kue Lawrence) is being shuffled off to summer camp against his will. His parents think its going to be good for him…and his grandfather (Corbin Bernsen) tries to talk it up to him. Then he drops dead. The parents send Morgan to camp anyway…like…right after watching his beloved grandfather die practically in his arms. Strange choice, right? Morgan is shy but does manage to find a group of friends fairly quickly. Unfortunately, he’s also being bullied by his bunkmate. To the point where he gets thrown into the water and almost drowns while his bully beats his friend half to death. The camp doesn’t bother to call Morgan’s parents about this. They don’t even send his bully home. Strange choices, right?
While these real life problems are plaguing Morgan, the entire group of campers are facing something else entirely. After hearing about a local legend of a doctor who haunts the camp…it appears to be coming true. The story alleges that the doctor takes kids and performs crazy operations on them. Morgan sees a masked figure with a taser stalking the woods near the camp…and campers are starting to get picked off one by one. The counselors are, for the most part, no help whatsoever. It’s up to Morgan and his band of misfit friends to figure out what’s going on.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, the strange things happening at this summer camp will eventually add up. The script is clever enough to lead you to one reveal that feels like a twist…and conceal a second, bigger twist behind it. It makes for a fun watch. From confusion to an interesting idea to a giant reveal. We obviously won’t be spoiling things here…but I will say that I did not guess where Marshmallow was heading. At all. What started out as a gateway camp slasher with an odd number of obvious logic holes turns into something new. Those logic holes are there for a reason. Something strange is happening at this summer camp.
Marshmallow’s cast is full of strong performances. Considering the cast is mostly children…that’s quite an accomplishment. The young campers feel like kids at a camp no one particularly wants to be at. The counselors feel like young adults who would rather do drugs and hook up then do their jobs. Both sets of actors make their parts feel authentic. Honestly, there was probably a decent horror movie about a camp run by absentee counselors here if Marshmallow never got into the Doctor story at all.
But there’s more to Marshmallow than expected at every turn. Once you figure out what’s happening…you’ll understand why the creative team behind it were never going to stop at the bare minimum. They create a believable world, set up a couple of possible A plots…and are actually delivering something entirely different. If nothing else, Marshmallow is an interesting movie that takes some big swings. I found it to be engaging before it became fascinating. An entertaining mystery that cleverly convinces you of a couple different paths that aren’t as interesting as the one it is secretly leading you down. A confident feature debut from director Daniel DelPurgatorio…and an exciting sophomore screenplay from Andy Greskoviak (Black Friday).
Scare Value
There’s more to Marshmallow than appears on the surface. What starts as a pseudo-summer camp slasher from the perspective of the children eventually turns into something else entirely. The script wisely doles out information in a way that allows the feel of the narrative to shift more than once. Where it ends up is unexpected. How it gets there is entertaining.
3.5/5
Marshmallow Links
Get it on VOD from Fandango at Home and Amazon
