Marshmallow (Daniel DelPurgatorio, 2025)

In circles of people interested in the history of horror on film, it's generally accepted that the evolution of the slasher sub genre flows through films like Peeping Tom, Psycho, Black Christmas and Halloween, but it's 1980's seminal Friday the 13th that cements those elements in the public imagination, and inspires the legions of imitators that would fill video store shelves over the two decades that followed.

Aside from presenting the opportunity of secluding a cast of characters in an out of the way location where technology would be frowned upon, the primacy of Friday the 13th is one of the reasons so many filmmakers choose keep taking the slasher film to summer camp. Sleepaway Camp, The Burning, Madman, even Stage Fright is a riff on the summer camp slasher, just to name a few. Part of the allure of the slasher's simple formula though, was that it was applicable to any number of different locations or plot scenarios. In 1996, Wes Craven came along with the third of his genre redefining masterpieces, Scream, revitalizing the slasher. With it's intelligent, post modern meta commentary on the sub genre, packed into an entertaining, fun, accessible film, Scream created not just a whole new generation of slasher film fans, but horror fans more broadly, and a touchstone for the horror filmmakers who were kids or teens when it was released.

2024's In A Violent Nature inverted the slasher formula, putting the audience exclusively in the point of view of the killer. It was an interesting exercise, as an attempt to take the genre in a new direction, stretch it further, but ultimately it lacked the power of the emotional weight the best slasher films can carry.

In all honesty, as a child of the eighties VHS era and the nineties straight to DVD era, my patience for the poorly made slasher film run thin. Occasionally, the distribution avenues opened by home exhibition gave some young ambitious, creative filmmaker the chance to prove to a wide audience they had the talent and drive to put something interesting, entertaining or thoughtful on screen, but it lead to many films made by people for no other reason than the dedicated fan being an easy pool of cash to draw from. Any film made for commercial exhibition is made because someone involved sees it as an investment opportunity. Not every film made for commercial exhibition has people involved who are passionate about filmmaking or the film they are making. The two can coexist, but because of the simple formula of the slasher, the availability of cheap distribution and a ravenous horror audience willing to take chances on low budget fare, the glut of slashers meant a whole lot of films made cheap, quick, without much interest in the quality of what audiences were going to be attempting to sit through. In a few too many of the slashers from those eras, you can practically hear someone whispering, "Just throw the blood and tits on the screen, the savages who come to these films don't care about anything else." They didn't really care about what they gave you, as long as they separated you from the cost of the ticket or separated the rental store from the cost of buying a copy. Even as there are some of the slasher films from those periods I love and appreciate, I don't share the nostalgia many horror fans around my age do for the era when the slasher reigned.

It could also be that I'm no longer a kid, sitting around watching bad slasher films with friends, making the experience entertaining by making fun of them when they're terrible.

Given this, I wasn't in much of a hurry to catch Marshmallow when it hit VOD in 2025. The trailer suggested a stylishly shot exercise in summer camp slasher nostalgia.

What it is though, is a clever genre mash up. It plays many of the notes one would expect from a summer camp slasher, in a rhythm befitting them, but it changes chords and tone to become something else. At the exact point when the body count should start rising exponentially, it starts a slow reveal, morphing into a different kind of film altogether, at the same time revealing what felt like missteps earlier in its story were indications it never was a summer camp slasher in the first place.

Director Daniel DelPurgatorio (if this is his given name, I'm a bit jealous, as it seems too incredibly well suited to someone who'd make a horror film) and writer Andy Greshoviak give some indication of this from the beginning, but manage to keep the ruse intact because the slasher film has been through so many iterations, "art house slasher" is a thing that has come into existence, and these early clues Marshmallow isn't what it's trailer and summary suggest become the equivalent of head fakes. There are a number of dream sequences throughout the film, and these work particularly well. They give DelPurgatorio an opportunity to flex a bit as a director, and their conception and execution suggest someone with a strong visual imagination who can also handle the surreal with the deftness that touches the surreal experience of dreams, instead of being outright absurd.

Kue Lawrence plays Morgan, the lead, a child being sent off to summer camp by his parents, despite his protestations. Morgan is a shy child, who suffers from nightmares, and we're shown in the first act he's not well accepted by the kids in his neighborhood. He's not so much bullied as excluded. A pall hangs over the looming summer camp visit, because it seems likely we're going to end up watching a shy, sensitive kid subjected to endless rounds of bullying in the kind of environment summer camps often are in horror films. Morgan's diffidence and the degree it feels like his parents are shoving him into a situation he's neither prepared for or interested in, sets the character up well, but it also makes it a bit hard to invest in him because for those first fifteen or so minutes, he's so closed off. Initially, it seems likely the film is going to be saddled with a lead who because of his youth, just isn't a very good actor. At the same time, we get one of the earliest indications the film is doing something different than it seems on the surface, in a way that gives it weight, and is still sly.

Once the film gets Morgan to the camp though, the fear of spending ninety minutes with a child actor who wasn't much of an actor dissipated. The kids and their interactions feel authentic, and they give good performances over the course of the rest of the film.

The counselors are set up in an interesting way. At first, they feel almost too trite and cliché, as if they were lifted directly from a character list in a hack screenwriting manual called "Summer Camp Slashers For Dummies." A common problem with the latter generations of slasher film so often runs into, is not recognizing that nostalgia for the bygone era of eighties slasher films doesn't have to be imitation, they end up recreating the same mistakes of the films of that era. Occasionally, something like The Final Girls comes along, and finds an interesting, entertaining way to play with that, but it's the exception where cliché character rosters are concerned. Andy Greshoviak's script is clever in the way it subverts this, because it does end up explaining why these characters feel like they are practically calling attention to the fact that these are performances of standard roles, but it may not serve the experience of watching the film very well.

This leads to a question I'm not sure there's an answer to. Marshmallow is a well made, cleverly written film, that looks great for a low budget horror movie. At the same time, what it is, its innovation on the slasher sub genre, puts it something of a no man's land as far as audiences are concerned. The way it's written, the way it was marketed, it's promotional art and trailer, everything about the film, before you see it, is designed to suggest it's a nostalgic summer camp slasher. Yet, the expectations of an audience who believes they are going to see that film aren't just going to end up seeing a film that by necessity and design, doesn't deliver that experience. Horror audiences are a rather forgiving, adventurous where fandoms of specific genres are concerned. There is also a specific audience for slasher films, both within and outside of the more general horror audience. There is a portion of the more general movie going audience not very interested in horror, other than the slasher film, and within the horror crowd, an audience whose love of the slasher sub genre borders on obsessive. This is one the things Kevin Williamson's screenplay for Scream perfectly depicted in the character of Randy. They have encyclopedic knowledge of the sub genre, have seen nearly every iteration of its simple formula, and will try just about any film they can find that fits the bill. I don't think Marshmallow is written and designed to deliver the experience they're looking for, and they are the audience most likely to give it a shot.

I admire Marshmallow for its creativity in the writing and direction, and that anyone can make a film that demonstrates the competency in filmmaking that it does, I'm left wondering who the audience for it is. Because it subverts the experience of a slasher film in the ways it does, and it is specifically designed to evoke the expectations of a slasher film from audiences, it's not really delivering for the viewing experience dedicated slasher fans expect. At the same time, the degree it does all of that so well, makes it most suited for an audience least likely to choose to see a slasher film in the first place, because of the sub genres reputation for being so iterative.

As I said, I respect what Marshmallow is doing, and that it's competently made. I have an appreciation for filmmakers, especially writers, experimenting with genre and sub genres, and films that are as much exercises in how to innovate them. It's one of the many varieties of movie going experience, and when done well, I appreciate it. Like any other variety or genre of film, the best of them deliver a compelling, engrossing, emotionally evocative experience. The worst of these though end up feeling like a confused mess, that didn't understand what it was trying to be or what it was trying to innovate on. Marshmallow doesn't end up being either of those.

How one feels about Marshmallow is likely going to depend on how they feel about films that are more interested in being exercises in playing with storytelling and genre conventions than they are in delivering the experiences the genre they're playing with specializes in. This is, I think, part of why low budget filmmaking is such an important part of the overall ecosystem of film, it gives writers and directors a chance to indulge these experiments, and to be able to evolve in their craft so they can learn meld innovations into the more compelling, emotionally engaging and rewarding experiences film can be. I'll be interested to see if DelPurgatorio is able to find his way to that evolution, because the technical basic of competent filmmaking are there.