Five-Legged Iguana

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #25

MARIANNE Season 1

(September 2019)

“[Marianne is] a witch.

“Deprived of a body, she wanders. She enters your soul, warps your body. She takes you over. She possesses you.

“The only thing Marianne cannot do is lie about her name. She can avoid the question, change the subject. But she cannot lie about her name.

“She is the wife of a demon.”

Opening with a Nathaniel Hawthorne quote* from The Scarlet Letter about “the Black Man,” the 8-episode Marianne sees writer Emma Larsimon (Victoire Du Bois) suddenly end her apparently successful 10 year run of Lizzie Larck books--with titles like Lizzie Larck in Chains and Marianne Bites, Emma herself describes the books as “teen girl literature”--in what an interviewer characterizes as “a rash move”.

That may very well be the case, because supernatural events straight out of her work start to happen around her, as the titular witch, Marianne, comes calling…

“It’s not fair… It’s your nightmare, not mine!”

Now, while I do feel that Marianne is ultimately recommendable, I think I need to point out some aspects of the show where viewers’ mileages may vary…

“Do you want a key? You want to see inside? There’s nothing. Only my cats and my teeth.”

Despite being a relatively brief (for Netflix, at least) 8 episodes, somehow the show still has time to allow some scenes to stretch into uncomfortable tedium whilst presumably aiming for tension.

There are also strange tonal shifts into brief (and sometimes painfully awkward) comedic moments, presumably to offset the largely gloomy, sinister proceedings, but which only serve to rudely remind the viewer that this is a show that’s trying to scare you out of your wits, but also reluctant to lose the broader, not necessarily hardcore horror audience.

There are also numerous nods to past horror classics. Numerous.

In the opening episode alone, there are scenes pointedly reminiscent of The Omen and The Exorcist, not to mention some Exorcist-style subliminal quick cuts (an editing style that recurs throughout the subsequent episodes).

Other horror films are likewise nodded to over the season’s course, the particularly blatant lifts distracting more than anything else.

My point here being, if you’re already doing something original (in that it isn’t an adaptation or a sequel or a prequel or a remake or a reboot or a re-whatever), then you may as well rely on fresh, original scares and not painfully obvious lifts that detract from the proceedings.

In the end, while there are macabre goings-on, sinister atmospherics, and stylistic flourishes aplenty, it’ll be up to each individual viewer whether those are enough to offset some of the show’s more problematic issues.**

“God will not forgive me, I know it. I’ve taken the worst possible path. I’ve walked by the sea. I saw the city. I am cursed.”

And, full disclosure, one particular reason why this show’s stuck with me is because I’ve written a comic that’s meant to be released within the year. (Pages are being inked--and subsequently lettered by yours truly--even as I write this.)

As with Silver Like Dust (available at mervstore.com), it's another Dakila crossover/team-up. Further details will, of course, be found here at the Iguana the closer we get to release date.

Right now, what’s pertinent to this post is that the comic just so happens to feature the same demon who’s first mentioned prominently somewhere before Marianne’s midpoint. The same demon and his 85 legions…

So, yeah, the instant he gets mentioned in the show, I’m like, “Hey!”

I gotta say, guy’s pretty popular, or at least, having some kind of Moment.

He’s also appeared recently in Vertigo’s*** The Dreaming, and even has a Marvel incarnation…

Oh, and the Sharon Van Etten needle drop during the extended flashback section was much appreciated as well…

“They will all be mine. We will lick and eat them all, my husband and I. You get crow, toad and cat.

“And you, little whore, I never leave empty-handed.”

* Each episode opens with a quote. Among the other writers represented: Arthur Machen, Henry James, J.M. Barrie, Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft.

** Including the kind of main character Emma is, the type of personality that leaves wreckage and ruin in her wake.

Is there a reason for this beyond “Oh, well, that’s just the sort of person she is”?

Yes.

But that doesn’t really make her any more likeable in some instances…

*** Sniff. R.I.P.

Parting Shot:

All 8 episodes of Marianne are directed by Samuel Bodin, and co-written by Bodin and Quoc Dang Tran.

Among the short films Bodin has previously worked on is the odd and highly stylized fan film Batman: Ashes to Ashes, co-directed with Julien Mokrani (mind the NSFW section)…

(Marianne OS courtesy of impawards.com.)