‘The Marsh King’s Daughter’ Review: Daisy Ridley And Ben Mendelsohn Lift A Terrifying Wilderness-Set Father-Daughter Story

deadline.com:

In 2018, Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie starred in a wilderness drama called Leave No Trace in which a father taught his daughter to live off the grid well out of view of “civilization.” I thought of that as I viewed the new thriller The Marsh King’s Daughter, but for some reason this story kept reminding me more of 1962’s terrifying suspense drama Cape Fear, as well as its Martin Scorsese-directed 1991 remake.

Maybe it is just because of the remote setting and a key character who comes back and sparks terror in the hearts of a family that didn’t know what they were in for.

Jacob (Ben Mendelsohn) is known as the elusive Marsh King, a man who kidnaps a young woman named Beth (Caren Pistorius) and takes her to the remote marshlands of Michigan, where he torments her and becomes father to their daughter Helena (Brooklynn Prince).

For the next 12 years Helena knows no other life, has no idea of the circumstances of her family, resents her mother who is traumatized, and looks up to her father who basically teaches her everything he knows about survival in a barren environment.