What a very weird, quirky and fun movie. I’ve had this on my found footage/documentary horror list for a while and finally got a chance to watch it. Digging Up the Marrow presents a niche concept of proving that monsters are in fact real and all around us. It’s a very silly movie, to be honest, but one that nonetheless is quite entertaining and enjoyable to pass the time. The cast, led by actual horror film director Adam Green, play themselves in the movie. They had a fun idea of desperately wanting to prove and capture on camera that real life monsters exist in our world once they were contacted by a fan of theirs claiming that he has been seeing them since he was a boy and that now, he has discovered their dwelling place in an underground cave located in a public park.

Ray Wise did a fantastic job of playing William Dekker and truly made the movie much more enjoyable. His character’s mysteriousness along with blunt interactions with Adam on camera was awkward to watch and made things a bit uncomfortable for the viewers but in a good way. Here’s a guy who is telling the crew that he knows of the monster’s hiding place but constantly insists that no lights be used to capture them on film, which of course leads the crew to begin doubting his claims. I don’t think this is one of those films where they wanted to portray to the audience that us humans are the “true” monsters in this world. Adam and the crew were not assholes by nature. While they wanted to get it documented on film to show the world, getting rich off of their film documentary wasn’t discussed. In addition, Adam put his other more important projects, which earns him actual income, on hold to investigate this. They were seriously interested in William and his story as well as wanting to prove what he says to be true, as evident by their love of monsters themselves from the very beginning.

For an obviously low budget movie, one of the monster scenes towards the end in the forest was actually not bad at all, especially when they filmed that caterpillar looking creature! Great job on the crew for that! The ending, I admit, got me stumped. Luckily, a Reddit post a decade or so ago had a theory that I found to be satisfying in that they explain how the William’s son is not the one actually stuck in his basement as the audience members were likely all assuming in the beginning. Once Adam saw the footage of William sneakily feeding food at night to a creature in the tunnel, we’re to then believe that he’s feeding his son. So, who was the mother? Well, that can only likely be that Brella creature William explained in the beginning of the film where he passionately describes some of the monsters he has seen along with a story where he “saw” a female monster lure a college boy away. He got extremely heated when Adam asked him about what they “meant” and if he was suggested that the monster and boy had sexual intercourse. The Reddit theory goes that William was the college boy and his son is the monster him and Brella birthed. So, it’s likely that he was feeding his son in the cave while Brella was the one locked in his basement. I did find this odd in that his monster son likely would have been mature by now, so why would he need to feed it other than to provide the hint to the viewers? There’s not a lot of unpack in this movie, so I kicked myself for not having figured this part out.

In addition, are Adam and his wife alive when the credits rolled? It’s odd in that he’s filmed on camera, letting the viewers know that camera #2 was somehow mysteriously delivered to him. It then goes to show the footage that was recorded. Furthermore, it ended with a monster being the actual recorder, and it somehow snuck into Adam’s home. It snuck right up to Adam and his wife while they were sleeping and finally letting out a big roar as both were woken up in terrifying horror before cutting to black. Was the monster Brella who captured William and was the one doing the recording, or could it have been his son? If it was his son, then it’s likely that it was Brella he was feeding food to in the cave. Either way, Digging Up the Marrow is a fun concept of an idea and film. I’m sure Adam and his friends had a ton of fun filming it.