Format: Streaming video from Hoopla on Fire!
I can’t honestly say that I’ve been getting more and more into obscure movies lately since there’s definitely a part of me that has a sort of hipster mindset with film. Years ago, when I was a lot more involved in music than I am now, I liked looking for little-know bands and artists simply because I got bored with a lot of what was out in the mass market. I love a lot of pop films (Sinners remains a favorite from 2025, for instance), but I love uncovering a gem that most people don’t know. Such is the case with Marshmallow, which is honestly better than its current reviews on sites like Letterboxd (Rotten Tomatoes has it more accurately).
Marshmallow is set up like a classic slasher movie, at least after the first couple of minutes. We’re going to start by being introduced to Morgan (Kue Lawrence), who witnesses his grandfather (Corbin Bernsen) have something like a stroke. Soon after, Morgan is sent away to summer camp, something he’s not very excited about. Morgan is a shy kid and doesn’t look like much of an outdoorsy kid. He’s also plagued with nightmares and has a desperate fear of drowning.
Camp is essentially everything that Morgan feared it would be, in large part because he is forced to be in the same cabin with CJ (Sutton Johnston), who is a bully and who especially seems to love picking on Morgan. However, Morgan does make some friends, especially Pilar (Kai Cech), who appears to be his age and seems to enjoy teasing him a bit. Morgan decides he doesn’t want lake privileges for the summer because of his fear of drowning, which causes some additional bullying.
That first night, sitting around the campfire brings us to the campfire tradition of telling a scary story. The legend that is spun this time is about a mythical monster called The Doctor who might still be living in the woods around the camp and who grabs young children who are out of bed at night and dragged to a basement and operated on. It’s all fun and games until Morgan is up late one night and sees something that certainly looks exactly like the legend.
The Doctor is a fascinating creation in Marshmallow, and director Daniel DelPurgatorio is smart to keep what the doctor truly looks like vague until the very end. All we see is someone dressed in something that looks like it might be scrubs or a lab coat, and the face is completely obscured because of the bright light he wears on his forehead. Morgan proceeds to wake up his friends and then goes to hunt down Pilar to keep her safe as well.
The Doctor is a terrifying figure because he’s so difficult to see clearly. It’s also worth noting that he doesn’t carry an axe or a machete but a essentially a cattle prod that quickly and cleanly knocks out whoever is hit with it. The fate of those children is then unknown for the view, as the work of The Doctor seems to be never done; there are always children waking up and running out.
Marshmallow takes a hard turn at one point when it’s evident that at least some of the camp counsellors appear to be working with The Doctor, and may even be imitating him in his dress and his tactics. There’s another major shift to come at the end of the film as well—a double shock from a film that already had one.
I enjoyed this a great deal. Marshmallow is not a film that is likely to ever become a part of the beaten path because it very much feels like a niche film. It blends a few genres in a new way, except that it’s also reminiscent of a few classics. I can’t say how this is the case, though, because it would act as a spoiler. Marshmallow is a film that shouldn’t be spoiled.
I will offer a small hint as regards the spoiler, though. For all that it has done well, there is a problem that is created by the show Black Mirror. Every time we get a science fiction show or story that has a twist ending or a twist moment that causes us to rethink the entire story, we tend to think that it would have made a great Black Mirror episode. Marshmallow does the same thing. Cut a little out of this, and this would have been a great Black Mirror.
Why to watch Marshmallow: Takes a hard left turn, then takes another one at the end.
Why not to watch: Why the hell is it called Marshmallow?
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