I have been struggling with writing this review for a few days now. I actually posted on my substack specifically about this.

JimmyZ Johnston | Substack

The reason why is complicated. I don’t shy away from spoilers. I don’t specifically embrace them, but it is hard to write reviews without embracing the idea of explaining the content in question. 

Marshmallow is a movie that can’t be reviewed without crossing the line into spoilers even though the movie demands that you don’t do spoilers. Gahhhh…

Enough prelude, let’s dig in.

Morgan is the main character here. A 10 year old (ish) kid that is plagued with nightmares about drowning. Super creepy imagery here as his dreams are rain drenched scenarios indoors with rising waters. It feels like there is more to these nightmares (of course there is, who would put such effort into movie imagery if it wasn’t relevant?) Although not knowing anything about this movie at the start, it would have been amazing if it wasn’t a dream!

We then get a little bit of family life in an awkward dinner where Morgan’s grandfather has a heart attack and dies. Jumping a bit, Morgan is sent to a summer camp where his doting mother dotes on him embarrassingly before leaving him to his summer experience.

For the most part, the next 30 minutes are the stereotypical summer camp movie. And at this point I realized this movie is a kids movie. Morgan is the main character, and we see everything as it relates to him (mostly.) As well as seeing the typical camp counselors doing the expected things. Sex. Smoking pot. Being anti-authoritarian towards the camp ruler! And also seeming to be thirty year olds pretending to be 18 (ish.) This chunk of the movie felt like I had seen it before. Because it did nothing unique or different. I honestly think that I could recreate this portion with clips from other movies.

There is the obligatory campfire tale scene, and I assume this is the scene where the title comes from. Campfires. Marshmallows. It may be a stretch, but nothing else makes sense in any way with the title. The tale is about a doctor who takes kids from a camp and experiments on them. Specifically kids that don’t stay in their bunks after lights out.

Typical things have happened. But then we get to a night where “The Doctor” is seen chasing a kid. And using a big stick taser thing to zap the kid comatose! Ok, maybe not in a coma, but they drop unconscious. Kids are running everywhere. Counselors are trying to get the kids to the mess hall (oddly calmly as if this was a practiced drill.) The one counselor we are guided to like gets knocked out by the Doctor (although not tased, just shoved to the ground and doesn’t get up. Dude had a glass jaw for sure.) Morgan and the small crew of misfits he has assembled are sticking together and not trusting anyone. 

Going to deviate here. I will say that at this point I was fairly checked out of this movie. It wasn’t made for me. I would give it a 3 rating right at this moment. Not that it was terrible. For the right audience, they may be truly enjoying this fairly lame (I mean tame) kid horror movie.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

No, really. These are story element significant spoilers. Think Bruce Willis is dead in the Sixth Sense level spoilers.

But something doesn’t feel right here. We see kids all over the place lying on the ground. My initial perspective of “tased into a coma” seems apt now. And we see the jerk counselor actually working with the Doctor. Hmmm. Not unexpected, but what are they getting out of this? Suddenly we realize that all the counselors are in on it. The nice counselor though had guided the remaining crew of misfits to an office where they could shelter from the Doctor. While sheltering though, Morgan and the girl he is close to (Pilar) find a filing cabinet full of files on the kids. The file on Morgan has an extra tidbit the kids don’t understand at first. DOB is Date of Birth, as they understand it. But what is DOD? We, the viewers know. But then it is revealed that Morgan had died from drowning years ago. 

Suddenly, in the last 10 minutes of the movie I am perked up and intrigued. Like a lot. This is no longer the kids light horror Goosebumps style movie of the first 80 minutes. 

And we get more info from the counselors as they have a conversation trying to figure out why some of the kids aren’t knocked out. Because the hot cocoa served up before dinner that night had some knock out agent in it. Also, one kid had escaped camp altogether and found a cop. A cop who brought the kid back to the camp! A cop who then was reprimanding the counselor for having allowed a kid to get away. 

Wait. What?… What, Wait… Wait. What? (Great line from Taskmaster, search that on youtube.)

At this point I have no clue what is going on with the story. Why are the counselors doing this? What is the endgame? It seems like doing bad stuff to the kids would be problematic for the parents. And how could the camp continue to function after such an incident?

Back to it. Morgan and Pilar confront the counselors with taser sticks they found. The nice counselor (who guided them to hide) takes control of the narrative, dismissing the rest of the counselors and sitting down with Pilar and Morgan.

He explains to them that he is actually a programmer and yes, Morgan did die. So did Pilar. Every kid at camp died. They are (in marvel terms) Life Model Decoys. Replicants. Robotic replacements. And the entire purpose of the camp is to have the kids all knocked out so they can be subtly changed. Because as replacements they don’t grow. So the kids are “turned off” and then medically altered. Grown by an inch or two. Hair implanted. The typical childhood growth expected but unable to happen with them being replacements. 

At this point, the movie has gone from stereotypical weak plotted kids horror movie to a nuanced and intriguing sci-fi horror.

Nice counselor (programmer) explains to Morgan and Pilar that because of the way things went down, all the kids are going to have a little 24 hour mind wipe in order to smooth things out. Because it wasn’t supposed to be a traumatic “chase and tase” night for the kids. They were supposed to go to sleep and everything happen before they “woke up.” But the nice counselor gives the pair of them an option. They can either go in for the mind wipe, or live with the knowledge they have gained, but all the other kids at camp will be wiped.

The next day we get a snippet of two kids who know, and everyone else being in the dark.

It ends though with a phone call to the head of the camp. It is revealed that this camp is just one of many, and there have been some incidents with kids getting violent. Something we had seen earlier in the movie with a bully kid (Interesting, a thought I just had about that scene was that the bully beat the holy hell out of a kid, but the kid just kinda got up. The pounding he took, he should have been wrecked. Hmmm, an early clue to what is happening, but I took it as just a kid movie not doing a thing well.) The end of the phone call happens as Pilar enters the office with a bloody butcher knife in hand, covered in blood. Both her and the knife. 

Whoa. I went from finishing this movie just on the grounds that I didn’t want to add another unfinished movie to my life total… ummm, that’s not a full sentence. But rather than fix it, I am discussing it… to wanting to rewatch it with the knowledge of what the story really is. But I don’t think I would want to see it the first time “knowing.” Beyond that though, I really want to see a follow up movie to it. Something bad is happening to these replicant kids, and society is going to pay for it. 

I honestly don’t know what my final rating is. I am thinking an 8 because I almost quit on it. I can’t justify giving it a 9 or 10 because the last 10 minutes were super cool. But I really want to. I mean think about it. I am wanting to rewatch a movie that I considered quitting on. The idea that this was a 3 originally was being very generous, because I could have gone with a 1 had I purely been going on my thoughts on it. I went up because I took into account that I am no longer 12 years old. To be fair, a lot of my life would be weird if I was 12 years old.  So yeah, an 8. Also, this is a much longer review than I expected.