Mārama (2025)

Premise: Mārama is this maori woman who travels to England after receiving a letter that promises her some answers about her ancestry. This, being a horror movie, happens but in the most monkey-paw-twitches kind of way, of course.

Under 90 minutes? Yeah! A minute less than that!
Do they say the title? They do! It’s her name, after all, although for some time she’s called Mary instead.

First thing I thought of:

Okay, more: Okay, so, first things first and so nobody says we’re not honest here at the Impeccable Taste HQ: yes, at times this movie is way, way into that whole “style over substance” thing. Like, all the visuals are gorgeous, but at the same time the movie sometimes goes a bit too hard on the dreamlike/nightmarish bits. Which makes you go “huh?” and “wait, uh?” because, let’s face it, i’m not a very intelligent person. On the other hand, this is a really gorgeous folk horror movie that has one of the most uncomfortable, horrific scenes that could have been a hee-hee-haha moment in Mad Men (blackface included). Very, very uncomfortable movie, impressive photography, some absolutely great casting. And yeah, at times a bit more concerned about how it looks, but hey. There’s definitely a LOT being said about cultural appropriation here and it really, really gets horrifying with the metaphors…

A simple way to improve it: I loved all the dresses in the movie and also I loved how sweaty and extremely offputting that dude was from literally the first time you see him. Good job there with the casting, really.

Trivia about the IMDb trivia:

The second version of the song in the credits is sung by the director’s mother. The song is about a mother grieving her daughter.

But is there a stinger, a scene that connects this to the Marvel Cinematic Universe??