Parents' Guide to Marrowbone

What begins as an innocent, old-fashioned children's tale takes a detour to creepy, disturbing places in this psychological horror from the writer of 2007 hit The Orphanage. The beginning of Marrowbone wouldn't feel out of place alongside movies like The Railway Children, as four siblings relocate to a country house and frolic in the surrounding fields and woodland. There's a lot of emphasis on staying together as their mother passes away and leaves eldest, Jack (a hardworking MacKay), in charge. From here, the timeline jumps to six months later and things may well start to get confusing and convoluted for some. The kids are isolated from the local town, outsiders rarely appear, and there's a presumably grotesque secret in the attic that haunts them and keeps them very much on edge. A period piece set in the U.S. in the 1960s, the movie mixes in a British post-war sentiment in the setting and costumes, which—whether consciously or not—ties it back to the very place the characters have escaped. There's something terrifying lurking in their English upbringing that all of them are desperate to avoid. Stranger Things' Heaton is particularly riveting as the intense middle brother, while Goth is reliable but given little to do as the sister forced into a maternal role toward her youngest sibling, Sam. Taylor-Joy is wide-eyed and unsure, but brings a confidence and courage to her role as the only person outside of the family who's trusted to learn the dark secret that lurks within the creaking walls.