Mara (2018) Horror Demon

 Mara (2018) Since my lovely daughter and I are cooped up at our homes during this Coronavirus crisis and all sports are cancelled, our normal riffing conversations are taking a hit. So we decided to take turn picking films to watch when apart and talk about in our calls. This is the first on of that series of films. If you want to play along we are moving onto "The Color of Space" next, so watch, come back to the blog and leave a comment or send us an email at movies@edhovey.com. We would love to here from you. Where to begin with this one?  Well with the public awareness growing about the subject of sleep paralysis there was bound to be a movie, and particularly a horror movie using it as a centerpiece. The Nightmare came out about the subject in 2015 and since then the growing awareness has made stories of everyday people's sleep paralysis a less taboo subject. Mara capitalizes on this by having the creature that comes in the night be a demon who uses sleep paralysis to get it's victims. Written by Jonathan Frank and Director Clive Tonge it is a story heavy on expository dialog to show us a tail about said creature. According to IMDB this film is director Tonge's first feature and Frank also with a shorter resume has a 40 million dollar film(reportedly filming) coming about a giant tsunami hitting Los Angeles. The writing on this film is okay but the nature of the story forces some labored exposition dialog that become a bit of a muddle at times. Not that it was not attempted within in character rants and doctor jargon, it is just that because they are really making up an urban legend that entire story, with its ancient history to modern day implications needs to be relayed to the audience and there was a lot to cover.
  The story centers around Kate Fuller (Olga Kurylenko) a young to the job forensic psychologist brought in to get a small girl, Sophie (Mackenzie Imsand) to talk about a horrific night in which her Father was killed. Her Mother Helena (Rosie Fellner) is being held for the murder but claims that a sleep demon name Mara is actually responsible for the death. Body actor Javier Botet is the demon in question. He is experience having worked as the creature of dozens of features.  Kate makes the mistake of promising Sophie she won't have her Mother committed to an institution but has to break the promise after coming under pressure from the detective McCarthy (Lance E. Nichols) who is running the investigation. Kate has a background where she too lost a parent at an early age and so has a strong desire to fix the mistake she made in the case by conducting her own investigation away from the police.
  This investigation leads to a couple rather lengthy, fill the audience in scenes, one with Dougie (Craig Conway) a victim of sleep paralysis who through a support group is trying to convince the world that the demon exists. He seems angry and a not but we learn because Mara has already targeted him he is forcing himself to sleep only 20 minutes at a time. When Kate interacts with him is fills in a long history of the monster and sets the rules the film going forward. There is a lot in these interactions probably on purpose there is a bunch of babble about the records that mention the creature. It is certainly also a purposeful move to not have all the rules worked out, leaving the question why is the creature going after these people. The second is with the doctor, Ellis (Mitch Eakins) who leads the support group, he is the science counterbalance to Dougie's crazy conspiracy theory. He gives his own description of what sleep paralysis is and how it operates as well as questioning the demon theory from a science point of view.
  As Kate gets more and more involved in the story she starts having sleep paralysis and seeing the demon. But why? Well, that is all about the third act, as Kate closes in on trying to solve the mystery before the creature kills little Sophie we get the promised scares a horror movie should have.  The final act works out the pieces that are missing earlier on in the film. I don't know if I really loved this movie, hell liking it is a stretch for me. It was okay, some things worked and others felt clunky. It also was not my favorite ending but I suppose they felt they needed something more than just saving the day.So I will reserve a recommendation for the film but that probably won't stop my 20 readers from looking at it.