InCinemas SG

Opening Date

27 Sep 2018

Rating

PG13 Horror And Some Coarse Language

惊悚画面及些许粗俗语言

Runtime

99 mins

Language

English with no subtitles

Genre

Crime, Horror, Thriller

Director

Clive Tonge

Cast

Olga Kurylenko, Javier Botet, Mitch Eakins, Craig Conway

Synopsis

Criminal psychologist Kate Fuller (Olga Kurylenko) is assigned to the murder of a man who has seemingly been strangled in his sleep by his wife and the only witness is their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie. As Kate digs into the mystery of an ancient demon which kills people in their sleep, she experiences the same petrifying symptoms as all previous victims and spirals through a chilling nightmare to save herself and Sophie before she dares fall asleep again.

Reviews

By Say Peng 26 Sep 2018

Horror fans who want a good scare may be disappointed, but fans of Olga Kurylenko should not miss the chance to see her in one of her few and far between lead roles.

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In ‘Mara’, director Clive Tonge’s debut feature, French model-actress and former Bond Girl, Olga Kurylenko, plays Kate, a forensic psychologist who has been called by the police to offer her assessment and diagnosis of Helena, a middle-class housewife who has been suspected of murdering her husband whose body has been found horribly contorted. A hysterical Helena claims that Mara, an ancient demon who haunts and kills people under sleep paralysis, is behind it.

As Kate investigates further, she discovers a support group for sleep-paralysis sufferers, which Helena used to be part of. One of the members is former soldier Dougie (Craig Conway), who provides much of the backstory for who Mara is and how she kills her victims. Apparently, it’s done in four stages, and Dougie is in the third stage, so he tries to prevent himself for sleeping by blasting loud music and setting a loud-ringing alarm clock. An accidental electric trip cuts off his alarm and he ends up being killed by Mara. Around this time, Kate starts to suffer from sleep paralysis and begins to be haunted by Mara. Despite this, she still does not completely believe in Mara’s existence until she witness Dougie’s death.

‘Mara’ is Kurylenko’s first lead role in a horror film, and she acquits herself generally well, although in some of the more emotionally demanding dramatic scenes, she struggles to convince. At times, Mara herself too struggles to convince us of its terror. She is most scary at the early part of the film, when we can barely see her, only her shadowy figure. But as the film progresses, we are shown more and more of Mara, and due to the low-budget prosthetics and makeup, Mara doesn’t appear that scary anymore.

‘Mara’ has been compared to Wes Craven’s ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, but without the nightmares and without the frights. The frights from Mara come almost entirely from jump scares, and after the first couple of them, one can virtually predict where the next jump scare will come from.

Horror fans who want a good scare may be disappointed, but fans of Olga Kurylenko should not miss the chance to see her in one of her few and far between lead roles.
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Mara
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Get Showtimes

Mara梦魔

Opening Date

Rating

Runtime

Language

Genre

Director

Cast

Synopsis

Reviews

Trailers / Videos

Everything Else

Mara
梦魔