Adam Green's latest film Digging Up the Marrow was actually something I've been somewhat looking forward to thanks to its promising premise. Mixing fantasy with reality in this documentary-style format only added to my interest. Unfortunately, this is one of those flicks that offers a great concept, but is executed poorly, which is sad because there was so much potential from the start.

The movie opens with a bunch of interviews from people in the industry and fans of the genre and their thoughts towards monsters in general. Then writer/director Adam Green appears on screen explaining that he received a notebook in the mail from a man who claims to have seen real life monsters and can prove it. Naturally Adam decides to turn this into a documentary of sorts and proceeds to visit this guy named William Dekker (played by Ray Wise) in hopes of actually proving that monsters exist. Of course it's not that easy, as the authenticity of these supposed monsters that Dekker has seen is often questioned, especially after spending much time at "the marrow" (a hole in the ground where these creatures are said to live in) and seeing nothing. That is, of course, until they actually do capture footage of a monsters on their second night.

Obviously the whole underground monster society isn't anything new (Nightbreed), but mixing fantasy with reality in this mockumentary is actually a refreshing approach towards that subject. Sadly, what could have been a great film turned out to be nothing more than looking at a bunch of neat drawings of monsters and Adam Green arguing with his staff about the authenticity of the material, while the rest of the running time is filled with random interviews of famous people within the horror industry. Aside from a couple REALLY brief scenes, we don't see any "monsters" until the last 15-minutes, which is also the only time anything actually happens in the flick.

To make matters worse, Adam Green and his staff try to act like themselves while pretending that this whole concept is real, which becomes an issue because their performances often come off as too forced or unintentionally comedic (mostly by Green who is in front of the camera way too much). So by the time something does actually happen it feels like we should laugh as opposed to being scared, because that's basically how Green treats everything (as one big joke). By the time the climax rolls around we're finally shown some monsters, which are all done practically and actually look pretty decent (if you ignore the fact that it's clearly someone in a suit). We're then given an unnecessarily ambiguous ending that felt more like Green didn't quite know how to end the film, leaving a lot of seemingly important things unanswered.

Digging Up the Marrow offers an intriguing and promising concept, but is also a very poorly executed film, in what I can only assume is due to budget restraints. Whatever the reason, there's a lot of lost potential here, as Adam Green mostly just delivers dull interviews and drawings in replace of actual monsters or any kind of legit action or scares. Unless you're an Adam Green fanboy I'd advise skipping this.