In the tense thriller The Marsh King’s Daughter, a woman with a secret past will venture into the wilderness she left behind to confront the most dangerous man she’s ever met: her father. In the film, Helena’s (Daisy Ridley) seemingly ordinary life hides a dark and dangerous truth: her estranged father is the infamous Marsh King (Ben Mendelsohn), the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. When her father escapes from prison, Helena will need to confront her past. Knowing that he will hunt for her and her family, Helena must find the strength to face her demons and outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the wild.

For in-depth thoughts on The Marsh King’s Daughter, please see my colleague M.N. Miller’s review from its original theatrical release here.

Video Quality

The Marsh King’s Daughter arrives on Blu-Ray with a 1080p presentation in its original 2.39:1 aspect ratio that looks sumptuous in high definition. The clarity throughout is impressive with subtle textures in the environment, production design, and clothing coming through favorably. Color saturation is in good shape with the muted color palette presenting moments exactly as intended. Some instances of the locations make more of an impression as they leap off the screen. Black levels showcase a welcome amount of depth and do not fall victim to significant digital noise or banding outside of fleeting shadowy moments. Skin tones are natural with some exposed skin showing off blood, bruises, and stubble as the narrative develops. Lionsgate Home Entertainment has delivered a grand high definition presentation here.

Audio Quality

The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track captures this story exactly as it is supposed to. Dialogue comes through clearly as it balances well with the music and the sound effects. The movie uses environmental sounds quite well, and the track never stumbles when bringing it to life. This narrative showcases intense moments when it calls for it, including a palpable low-end response that suits the narrative. This story allows for many moments of quiet which puts a greater emphasis on the sounds of the locations around the characters, which the soundscape disseminates from numerous directions. This track is quite good at what it does. There are English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles provided.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: Director Neil Burger provides a solid enough commentary track in which he discusses the development of the film, the differences from the source material, his work with the performers, the location shooting, and more.

The Art Of Survival – Making The Marsh King’s Daughter: A 20-minute featurette is provided in which the cast and creative team discuss the story, what drew them to the project, the atmosphere on set, the themes of the project, the production design, and much more.

Trailer: The two-and-a-half-minute trailer is provided here.

Final Thoughts

The Marsh King’s Daughter is a bit disappointing considering all of the promising elements it has going for it. The performers are terrific across the board and aid in making you like this effort to whatever degree that you do. Where it falls apart more is in the screenplay which struggles to adapt the source material while also expanding things for a feature film. We love a good mysterious crime drama, but this often feels more basic cable than theatrical quality. While passably entertaining, it fails to come close to its potential. Lionsgate Home Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray with a very strong A/V presentation and a couple of cool supplemental features.

The Marsh King’s Daughter is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Lionsgate Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.