Mārama, or, Walking Backwards Into The Future

Mārama is currently a Shudder exclusive, which I’m hoping will do a lot to bring it to a wider audience. It’s the debut feature from writer and director Taratoa Stappard, and it has the feeling of a very earnest and opinionated production that is doing a lot with a modest budget. The story centers on Mary, a young Māori woman who’s been summoned to Yorkshire from her home in Wellington, by a mysterious letter from a man who claimed to know about her birth parents. She soon finds herself inside an impossibly dark gothic mansion, filled with haunted mirrors and strange visions, owned by a wealthy Englishman who seems to be obsessed with Māori culture. He’s learned the language, he’s taught the language to his granddaughter, and he invites Mary to live at the mansion as the girl’s governess. Based on the premise and the few promotional images, I’d expected this to be similar to Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, or something like Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito. And it is,…