THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE

At the same time as The Orphanage director JA Bayona was diving into blockbuster waters with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, his erstwhile writing cohort Sergio G Sánchez was making his directorial debut with this richly atmospheric but derivative self-penned horror.

George MacKay heads up the cast as the eldest son of a family who, in the late ’60s, flee England for a crumbling gothic pile in rural America. Soon after they arrive, however, a bullet is fired into one of the windows and the movie cuts to a “six months later” caption. We have to wait until the last reel to find out what happened, though seasoned horror watchers will be able to piece it all together.

There’s much to admire in Sánchez’s handsome chiller, from composer Fernando Velázquez’s lush orchestrations to MacKay’s perfectly coiled turn as the protective Jack, but there’s too much that’s familiar here, and the denouement owes more than a little to The Orphanage. Sadly, The Secret Of Marrowbone doesn’t come close to matching that film’s bone-deep chills, and while it may hold surprises for genre newbies, horror-heads with longer memories may prove harder to seduce.

Extras Deleted/extended scenes (27 minutes); a visual effects reel. Steve O’Brien