A campfire tale is only the beginning.
Marshmallow
The film is now streaming on Shudder.
A target of schoolyard bullies, young Morgan (Kue Lawrence) considers his beloved grandfather Roy (Corbin Bernsen) to be his emotional tether. When the old man unexpectedly dies, 12-year-old Morgan goes into a tailspin, prompting his parents to send him to summer camp.
Surrounded by bucolic woods and built near an inviting lake, the camp looks like every other camp in movie history: filled with young campers of different ethnicities, and overseen by counselors with runaway hormones. Naturally, a scary story is told over a campfire -- involving an insane doctor cutting up patients or some such nonsense -- but the kids are suitably jump-scared, drink their cocoa, and head to bed.
Directed by Daniel DelPurgatorio from an original screenplay written by Andy Greskoviak, Marshmallow distinguishes itself with its clever wrinkles on a familiar premise. From its opening scenes, it's established that young Morgan is dealing with disturbing nightmares that push near the top of believability. Yet DelPurgatorio holds the reins on the simmering unease; we know something is not quite right, even as the usual summer camp antics continue.
Thick layers of tension-filled music, composed by Nicholas Elert (The Stylist, 2020) and powered by what sounds like 80s analog synthesizers, along with similar, 80s-styled cinematography by Filip Vandewal, contributes to the smoky atmosphere. Among the counselors, Giorgia Whigham stands out as a sympathetic and sensible counselor.
As noted above, we know that something is not quite right, but I, for one, was completely wrong about the nature of that something and also where the story might go, which made it even more satisfying to see how the filmmakers resolved things. After a brief theatrical release in 2025, Marshmallow is the kind of modestly-budgeted indie horror flick that I love to discover on Shudder.
Also debuting this week are two films that we've already reviewed:
A Desert
The film is now streaming on Shudder.
Our own Olga Artemyeva saw the film during its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival; in her review, she noted: "Underneath the horror shocks and the neo-noir vibe, there is a lot being said here about the creation and the perception of art. Cinema in particular, as a blank movie screen is the image that is being repeated throughout the whole film.
"The plunge into any actual exploration of the reality is a pretty gritty affair, as - to paraphrase Stephen King for the last time - the world has teeth and can bite you with them any time it wants. Sometimes the teeth are literal."
Americana
The film is now streaming on Starz.
Last year, Olga Artemyeva also saw and reviewed this film, starring Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, and Halsey, though she found it a bit less satisfying. Still, in her review, she wrote: "From the variety of the main players in Tony Tost's Americana, the one the film itself resembles the most is Cal - in that it, too, strives to be something else, seemingly, with no core understanding of what it really is. Like Cal's knowledge of the Native American culture that's based on many hours of watching classic Westerns, Americana is rooted in the authors' clear and genuine love for cinema."
Now Streaming celebrates independent and international genre films and television shows that are newly available on legal streaming services.