User reviews

Marlene, the feature debut of director Andreas Resch, follows closely the tropes of German, modern horror. It's all here. Run-down apartments, the naturalistic cinematography and fractured minds. We follow Marlene a woman in here late twenties as she moves to Berlin for a new job and the possiblity to start her life with a fresh slate. She gets to know her neighbor Flo, an socially awkward, but apperantly harmless guy. However things soon take a turn for the worse...

Resch delivers a film here in the vein of austrian director Michael Haneke and Berlin's master of low budget horror Jörg Buttgereit, albeit without the latter's penance for gore and explicit shocks. Resch proves his ability to weave an engaging and tense thriller with very limited resources. All backed up by the simple yet effective camerawork of cinematographer Matthias Grunsky but most of all by the performances of lead actors Cordula Zielonka and Thomas Clemens.

This claustrophobic and at times grotesque chamber play of a chiller, might not offer the phantasmagorical visions of Kevin Kopacka's «Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes» and Julia Ostertag's «Dark Circus». A trend that seems to be prevalent in German indie horrors of the last, five years. But still Resch leaves the viewer with an unsetteling, at times melancholic experience.

Marlene - a likeable, normal name, a likeable, normal woman. The film's eponymous main character arrives in Berlin, finds a beautiful apartment in an old building and starts a new job as a restorer.

But it soon becomes clear that beneath the seemingly normal and harmonious surface, something frightening is waiting for Marlene.

Sound, camera, editing and music subtly and unstoppably underline the impending danger in which Marlene finds herself.

The film captivated us from start to finish. One of the reasons for that is the impressive acting by Cordula Zielonka.

Especially if you like suspense thrillers, you'll get your money's worth here.

A clear recommendation from us!