Marebito (2004) User Reviews

An average effort by the director of Ju-On

[edwjoolee · 6/10 · 22 April 2006]

Marebito starts out with an interesting premise, but somewhere along the way the movie falls apart.

A camera man captures a man in the subway committing suicide by stabbing himself in the eye. The camera man becomes transfixed by the death image of the man and studies the footage with the hopes of finding a clue as to why the man would commit such an act. He surmises that the man has experienced something so terrifying immediately before his death as to render him suicidal. So the camera man ventures into the subway for clues and finds a door that leads even further down into the subway. The beginning part of the film captured my interest.

Too bad.

What the main lead uncovers...actually what he finds beneath the subway...and what unfolds thereafter is incredibly dull. The rest of the film becomes a jumbled mess as the main character tries to rationalize, in his more and more irrational mind, the supernatural events that unfold. But the film looks rushed and uninspired...it does look like it was filmed in two weeks.

I thought Ju-on was creepy and fairly good as a horror film. The director's effort on this film is unfocused and meandering; he even interlaces at points in the film, clumsily I might add, with discussions of philosophy and the supernatural in the hopes, I suppose, of lending the film some gravitas. Is the director trying to be metaphorical and deliberately obtuse? I don't know and I did not care.

Because I found some parts of the film creepy and even innovative, I rate this film: Average.

Horror or ancient wisdom?

[lastliberal · 6/10 · 29 February 2008]

A strange film by Grudge writer/director Takashi Shimizu.

Shinya Tsukamoto (Ichi the Killer) is consumed with finding out the source of terror that caused a man to stab himself in the eye. He wants to experience the same terror - terror so horrible that it would cause you to want to kill yourself.

He goes underground looking for the beings that inhabit the tunnels under Tokyo and finds a naked girl, who he brings home to live with him. The girls is more animal than human and he kills to provide her blood rather than give her his own blood, which she wants.

It is not certain throughout whether he is going mad or finding what he is searching for. He even tries to escape, but resumes the search until he finally succumbs to the terror.

Despite the shaky camera work, which some like, but which distracts me, it was a fascinating look at terror and certainly a film that contains much more than available at first glance. A blend of mysticism and horror, it is a worthy view for fans of Japanese horror.

Weird Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 17 May 2008]

In Tokyo, the freelancer cameraman Takuyoshi Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto) is obsessed investigating the fear sensation near death. When he shots with his camera a man stabbing himself in the eye in the access to the subway, he seeks what the suicidal might have seen to experiment the same sense of horror the man felt when he died. He finds a passage to the underground of Tokyo where he meets a mysterious naked woman that does not speak and he calls her F (Tomomi Miyashita). He brings F to his place and he has difficulties to feed her, until he discovers that she drinks blood. Masuika becomes a serial killer draining the blood of his victims to nurse F.

"Marebito" is a very weird low-budget movie that discloses the madness process of the lead character through his journey to hell in the underground of Tokyo. This original story is disturbing and unpleasant, using a morbid and creepy atmosphere, to unravel the twisted mind of a deranged man. However this strange movie is recommended for very specific audiences only. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Marebito: Seres Estranhos" ("Marebito: Weird Beings")

Marebito

[drumgoddess07 · 28 January 2005]

I highly suggest seeing this film if you are a fan of Shimizu's works. Apparently it was filmed before Ju-On, in only eight days. This shows what a master filmmaker can do in such a short time. This movie will make you feel very uncomfortable and extremely disturbed. It is about a camera man who wants nothing more than to feel the most extreme fear. He than finds a subterranean lair filled with eerie creatures called Deros, and he finds a girl (or a creature much like a girl) chained to a rock and takes her home to care for her. He attempts to feed her but he finds that the only thing that she'll eat is blood. The only problems I had with it were the shaky camera moves (Blair-Witch style)but since he only made it in eight days...he has an excuse, and it will go to a normal camera to give your eyes a break. Overall a masterpiece in psycho-horror.

Nightcrawler

[sol- · 7/10 · 16 September 2017]

Also known as 'The Stranger from Afar', this Japanese horror film focuses on a freelance photographer who rescues a naked woman chained to a rock in a subway tunnel; he takes her home, only to discover that she is more animalistic than human with a taste for blood. The film is pretty much as weird as it sounds with little indication of just how much of what occurs is hallucination, imaginary or real. It remains a gripping ride though even when everything cannot be deciphered thanks to a truckload of atmosphere and a genuinely unsettling turn by Tomomi Miyashita as the mysterious woman. Some of the symbolism hits home quite well too with the protagonist viewing himself as a vampire, feeding off filming the misery and pain of others (sort of like Jake Gyllenhaal's character in 'Nightcrawler', but with a moral compass here). The film also taps into some curious territory early on as the protagonist announces a desire to find what caused a man to be so terrified that he committed suicide before his camera lens; some of his soliloquies in this early part of the film bring to mind 'Videodrome' as he equates cameras to the retinas of human eyes. One's mileage with 'Marebito' will no doubt vary depending on one's tolerance for the unexplained and deliberate ambiguity, but it is certainly refreshingly different from most other vampire movies out there.

Weird, but not great

[As_Cold_As_Ice · 6/10 · 5 August 2007]

This was just a strange movie, but not in a cool way, like Forbidden Zone, or Uzumaki. Just weird.

All I can say is that a creepy voyeur cameraman sees a guy commit suicide by stabbing himself, and wonders what he had seen that made him so terrified. Any more said would ruin it.

Sure, the acting by the guy was good, and you never know what is going to happen next, and it is well shot, but it is ultimately boring, and the ending doesn't satisfy you. I did enjoy it on some level, but by the end, I was ready to stop watching.

6/10

Sure, Just Don't Get Any On The Sofa...

[loogenhausen · 7/10 · 30 November 2011]

This is another Japanese flick, like Premonition (Yogen) that I wanted to praise much higher, but it just missed it by that much. The premise of the film is very compelling and most of the movie has that unsettling sensation (like when someone is staring at you from just outside your peripheral vision). There was one part in the movie where I had to rewind it several times just to check to see if I really saw what I was just looking at (if you've seen it already, you probably know what I'm talking about). When the voyeuristic main character enters into the underworld, he has a compelling conversation with a strange passerby and then after that he brings a cannibal chick back to his apartment to eat him in sessions. Got all that? I'm not giving anything away, so rent and enjoy!

Creepy, but ultimately unsatisfying

[bherring24 · 4/10 · 8 April 2005]

I honestly cannot say I liked this movie. I appreciate what it is, which is a genuinely creepy movie shot in 8 days on consumer-grade digital video by one of the masters of Japanese horror. However, what I cannot appreciate is the disregard for character development or practical story-telling.

Masuoka is obsessed with video. He's got his own apartment under surveillance (from within, oddly enough), he carries a small camcorder everywhere he goes, and he seems to be plugged into random cameras throughout the city. And what he's looking for in all of this video is the ultimate in fear. One day, walking in the subways, he encounters a bizarre suicide. The victim sees something that only he can which, apparently leads him to stab himself in the eye. Obsessed with finding out what this man saw, Masuoka goes underground. Literally. Underneath the city he finds a bizarre netherworld. And one naked girl chained to a wall. Who may or may not be his daughter.

Sounds weird, hunh? Well, it sure is. The use of digital video, cut with even grainier digital video makes for a creepy look, and the sound work is a constant video hum which increases the paranoia and overall strange feeling. But that's really all the movie is. Just a really creepy exercise that never builds into something coherent. Characters pass through with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but they sure are creepy. Many big ideas are pitched (like another dimension of freaky demons leaking over into ours. Ouch!), but they're never taken anywhere.

If you're a fan of Shimizu's work, you'll notice his fingerprints all over this. However, this is a departure in many ways. It is not built around the "boo" factor which pervades most of this other work. It is a much dreamier, atmospheric film than his others. It doesn't seem as concerned with scaring as it is with just creeping the hell out of people. Which it does. What is missing is who this guy is. What he's all about, why he's videotaping everything. And maybe a coherent story.

But, holy crap, a movie shot in 8 days! Kudos.

A Detailed Explanation of What's Really Going On in Marebito

[The_Secret_Skull · 8/10 · 2 April 2006]

The most obvious and important thing to keep in mind while watching Marebito is that the audience experiences everything from the main character's point of view. However, Masuoka is NOT having delusions. To really see through his eyes, you have to know where he's looking.

Masuoka is a man out of balance and incomplete. He's emotionally empty and alienated from other people. He's not alive in what he does. He experiences life only artificially through the eyes of his video cameras and by taking the antidepressant Prozac. Masuoka says he's recorded UFOs, ghosts, and other phenomena but they don't interest him. Those are "known" mysteries. He spends all his time looking for the "unknown," the thing that's missing. Then one day he catches a glimpse of it in the eyes of Kuroki, a terrified man who commits suicide in the subway. Suddenly realizing the answer lies on the inside instead of the outside, he embarks on a quest to find the source of Kuroki's terror.

To begin, he stops taking Prozac; he's casting off the Band-Aid to treat the real wound. From this point on, the audience is accompanying Masuoka on an inward journey into his subconscious. To Masuoka, this takes the form of a descent into the tunnels beneath Tokyo and reveals his inner landscape to be a vast "Hollow World."

The ghost of Kuroki, who Masuoka meets in the tunnels, explains another reason to use Shaver's Hollow World mythos as a backdrop: He says that when Shaver wrote it, it was fiction, but when people read it, it became real. Masuoka is going down into the collective unconscious, home of the archetypes present in us all. Here he finds F, a pretty, naked girl imprisoned in a small cave.

Chained, pale, and without a voice in the middle of this metaphorical empty cavern, F personifies Masuoka's anima, his underdeveloped and neglected emotional/feeling side. The English "F" doesn't stand for Fuyumi -- that's a red herring -- it stands for feminine (i.e. anima). He takes her back and hides her in his apartment, but his intentions throughout the film are to nurture and care for her. That's important.

F is only awake a few hours a day. She needs Masuoka to give her his blood (life/vitality) to drink so she can fully awaken, but he keeps holding back. He only lets her have a little or else substitutes other blood for his own.

All the characters Masuoka talks to during this ongoing journey are manifestations from his subconscious. Notice he encounters them all in cave-like settings (did you catch "deep" written large on the wall at the bathroom murder scene?). He doesn't literally kill anyone. He's facing his own personal "Deros," defined as the flawed, deformed robotic elements that advanced people leave behind. His actions on the surface are no more physically real than the Hollow World is underground. The murders are a kind of personified psychoanalysis. Remember, we're seeing everything from Masuoka's point of view, and he's looking inside himself.

Early on, before he descends into the depths, Masuoka sees a woman in a window and says he saved her soul by filming her, that is, by recognizing her existence. That's what he's doing throughout much of Marebito. He's recognizing the elements at work inside his psyche that caused him to withdraw from others. In doing so, he's trying to save his own soul. He takes away their life so F might live.

But change is difficult. He gives up and leaves F sleeping in Shinjuku and retreats to the safety of distance. After he's been away from his camera for a while (i.e., back in the real world), he starts thinking about getting a job and rejoining society. He's reverting to the way he was: rational, unfeeling and robotic. Then Kuroki's ghost appears at the seashore to remind him of the splendor of the depths.

Masuoka admits his supposed madness was only a pretense for opening himself up to the terror he seeks. He says he understands that he killed his wife and treated his daughter like an animal, but he's speaking figuratively; he's accepted his previous failures as a husband and father. Putting these ghosts behind him (like in the elevator) enables him to go back to find the terror Kuroki describes as true wisdom.

On his way, he spots the Deros, whose stated role is to "take people back into the depths." He checks in on the phone-camera they bring him and is surprised to find F waiting in his apartment, but the picture on the screen is his own. This leads to the satisfying, upbeat conclusion.

Masuoka's final letting go is a victory. If F represents his anima/emotional side, then finally giving her what she needs to thrive frees them both. Seeing his own picture on the phone means he is at last able to integrate this buried aspect of himself into his personality. The terror of the unknown is his fear of opening up emotionally, and experiencing this terror means becoming an active participant instead of an outside clinical observer -- it's the terror of living.

Cutting open his mouth, he fully commits to giving F all the blood/vitality she needs. When she feeds, it looks like a kiss. They're devouring each other to become one.

The Masuoka that F leads back underground is the formerly dominant unfeeling aspect of his psyche that carries a camera as its totem. F is awake now, and she gives him a peaceful smile that's the opposite of his look of terror.

One of the last shots in Marebito shows Masuoka and F lying together in the cave, his black clothes curled opposite her bare white skin. This is a yin-yang symbol. A union of opposites. Together, these two forces at work inside Masuoka are finally in balance and complete. Inner harmony has been achieved, and his Hollow World isn't quite so hollow anymore.

Man-Boy and his Camera

[CelluloidRehab · 6/10 · 11 January 2007]

If you like Takashi Shimizu and his work, then you will probably like this. You may remember him from such movies as the Grudge, various Grudge remakes and the Grudge 2, along with its remake.

We follow the exploits of videophile cameraman Masuoka. Masuoka is played by Japanese actor/director Shinya Tsukamoto. You may remember him from Tetsuo the Iron Man, A Snake of June, Tokyo Fist and the coma inducing Bullet Ballet (he doubles as director and actor in many of his movies). His acting style is usually very similar throughout his various role (the quiet, doormat otaku character). Don't expect something drastic here. If the director happens to rehash the same material over the last decade (I'm looking at you too George L.), why should the actors discover a new id and ego? There are some interesting and pervading issues throughout the movie : Reality vs Perception; Urban Legends; Fear; Vampirism as a Lifestyle; Parasitic Relationships; Ghosts; Eye vs Lens.

The main part of this relates to the way Masuoka deals with information. Experiencing it in real-time as himself does nothing. It is the act of watching everything via video that proves profound for him. Video, after all, is the purest and least biased of the two methods of perception. But it is also true that the "pureness" of video is not absolute, being that perception of it changes the result. That's the good part of this movie. The bad part is we don't really get any answers or is that simply because there is nothing really there? Most of the "narrative" is done through a 3rd person narrative (movie camera) and the rest is through the handy-cam (mostly first-person). One can't help but feel the Cannibal Holocaust/Blair Witch similarity, with a touch of El Mariachi. I frankly was not impressed with the Grudge. None of them. I found them too drawn out and boring. It's mainly the kind of movie that tries to make you feel uncomfortable about eerie music and darkness. This one isn't quite that bad, but I was expecting a bit more evolution out of the director. Kudos to him for discovering the new "must-have" pet this Christmas : a sanguine, mute pseudo-female companion.

I say skip this. Stick to anything Miike.

Dull J-Horror...

[EVOL666 · 5/10 · 13 April 2006]

Not too much to say about this one. The story starts off relatively interesting but pretty much dies on the vine. The "twist" ending doesn't really do much to save it either.

A guy is obsessed with "terror" and is searching for the "ultimate fear". He goes around looking for it and comes across a strange blood-drinking chick instead. They hang around a bunch and then the "revalation" as to who this chick is and what this guy's life is all about is made known...

The beginning of the film started off with some decent concepts including some Lovecraft-ian references that were never expanded on, and eventually just ends up being a bore. Nothing really notable at all in this one. Not horrible and will probably be loved by J-horror bandwagon-jumpers, but I've seen too much of this stuff (ranging from "classic" to flat-out horrible...) to be thrilled with every new one that comes down the pike. Not the worst of the bunch but very, very average..5/10

Excellent Lovecraftian horror...

[jluis1984 · 8/10 · 22 January 2007]

Thanks to his series of ghost stories, "Ju-on", Japanese director Takashi Shimizu has become one of the most recognized names of the New Wave of Asian horror cinema, the movement of young Asian directors that since the late 90s has produced some of the best and most original horror movies of the last years. The enormous success of his "Ju-on" series took Shimizu to the U.S., in order to direct a remake of the third installment of the series ("Ju-on: The Grudge"), named simply as "The Grudge"; but right before working on the remake, Shimizu took some days with fellow director Shinya Tsukamoto and a small crew to make a very low-budget horror movie, pretty much on the style he used to make when "Ju-on" was a straight to video release, but this time with a very different kind of story.

Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto) is a freelance cameraman almost completely detached from the world and entirely focused on his preference for videotaping and doing camera-work. Onde day, he accidentally tapes the suicide of a man named Arei Furoki (Kazuhiro Nakahara) on a subway station. The strange characteristics of this event, makes Masuoka to be obsessed with the idea of a fear so powerful that only death can erase, so in an attempt to understand Furoki's fear he descends into the underground tunnels of Tokio, discovering the entrance to a bizarre cavern that seems like a passage to the underworld. Is in this caverns where he finds a naked girl (Tomoi Miyashita) chained to the wall. He unchains her and takes her to his apartment, but soon he discovers that this girl (whom he names "F") is not a normal person, and that her presence in his world will make a darker side of him to come out.

"Marebito" was written by Chiaki Konaka (better known as the writer of the famous anime, "Serial Experiments Lain"), and like most of his works, it is a dark psychological story with a slight cometary on the relationship between humans and the technology they produce. Narrated by Masuoka, the story is told from his perspective, so we are taken along him through his discovery of mysteries that should be better kept secret and the terrific consequences of his actions. It is very Lovecraftian in the sense that, like in the stories by H.P. Lovecraft, we have a main character who may not be entirely sane, and whom his curiosity takes him to the darker sides of human nature. His relationship with the strange girl "F", and his attempts to establish communication with her become the focal point of the plot of "Marebito", although like in other works by Konaka, reality is not always what it seems.

It seems that this "return to roots" was really beneficial for Takashi Shimizu, as the work he offers in "Marebito" is once again a very fresh and original horror movie that proves that there is more in this young director than the "Ju-on" series. By working again on a shoestring budget, Shimizu is able to capture the simple and monotone life of Masuoka, and with the use of digital video he mimics the world as his main character sees it: a world through the camera lens. While the movie moves at a very slow pace, it really is an improvement over the style of using disjointed story lines in "Ju-on", and never falls into the trap of being boring or repetitive (a common flaw of the "Ju-on" movies). However, a trait kept from "Ju-on", is Shimizu's skill to create ominous haunting atmospheres with common everyday objects, this time, the video screens and what's on them is the focus of the film.

Shinya Tsukamoto is better known as the director of the remarkable and influential films like "Tetsuo" (1989) and "Tokyo Fist" (1995), but here he offers his talents as an actor in a film where he plays the main character. While a very talented director, Tsukamoto is not really a great actor, and both he and Shimizu seem to be aware of that, so his portrait of Masuoka is conceived as a typical man with obsessive behavior, entering the unknown. The movie's highlight is Tomomi Miyashita, who gives life to the feral child "F", with a frighteningly believable performance that definitely gives the chills. Kazuhiro Nakahara, Miho Ninagawa and Shun Sugata appear in supporting roles, but their appearances are limited, as the movie focuses entirely on Masuoka and the consequences of his relationship with "F".

"Marebito" is an excellent example of how imagination and a good plot can make a film work even with the most limited resources. Of course, the movie suffers the most in the special effects department, with some of the visuals looking painfully amateurish (although probably that was the intention). The use of digital camera may be annoying to those expecting a good looking film, but instead of being a flaw, its use in the film gives the story a realistic tone, as if we were really watching a person's descent into madness. Some people have criticized the convoluted plot of Konaka's story, filled with many details and references that often make no sense or have twisted meanings in the movie; however, I find the storyline captivating because of that unpredictability, and the fact that Shimizu moves away from the ghost stories that have become typical of Asian horror is really refreshing.

With his "Ju-on" ghost stories, Takashi Shimizu became known worldwide as a major horror director, but personally I think that "Marebito" is the movie that truly reveals him as a horror author. It's not a movie destined to be a hit, but it's one that shows a different take on horror and while maybe "The Grudge" is the movie that most people relate to Shimizu, but personally, I think that "Marebito" is a much better and more satisfying movie. 8/10

Jacob Wants His Ladder Back

[stmichaeldet · 7/10 · 9 April 2006]

Marebito is the story of Masuoka, a freelance cameraman who becomes obsessed with experiencing absolute terror. His quest begins when he and his camera happen upon a terrified man who commits suicide in the subway. Masuoka captures the whole thing on tape, and, apparently after selling the footage to a news program (hey, the guy's gotta eat!), begins studying it, and other gristly scenes he's collected, for some clue as to what was going on in the dead man's head.

While revisiting the scene, M. attempts to retrace the dead man's steps, and discovers a passage leading down deep beneath the bowels of the city, to a secret underworld populated by crazy homeless people, the spirits of the dead, and the Deros from the Shaver Mysteries hollow-earth conspiracy (look it up - classic old-school paranormal wackiness). This is where I began to suspect that M. had more wrong in his head than simply an inability to get over a bit of disturbing video footage. But at this point, we're still seeing things solely through M.'s eyes, so let's roll with it.

After a deep, philosophical conversation with the suicide victim, M. finds a naked girl chained by the ankle in a small nook. He takes her home, names her "F," and discovers that she is mute, has fangs, does not eat or drink, and seems to have never known human company. He tries to befriend and help her, but she gradually becomes weaker until he discovers her taste for blood. Of course, this being a horror film, he has to start killing people in order to keep F fed. Disturbingly, M.'s first victim is a "crazy" woman who has been following him around, "claiming" to be his ex-wife, and demanding to know what has become of their daughter. Yeah, M.'s definitely got some serious mental problems.

Now, overall, I enjoy films with unreliable narrators, but they have a couple of major problems as a genre. First, there's really not that much to say in a movie that takes place entirely in one character's delusional world except, "This guy's batsh*t crazy." The first time you see one, it's an amazing trick; the second time, a nifty puzzle; but after a while, they all start to blend together. And second, once you've figured out that what you're seeing are the viewpoint character's hallucinations, all bets are off, anything can happen, and suspense goes out the window.

Marebito, however, is saved from also-ran status by the masterful direction of Takashi Shimizu and an excellent performance by Shinya Tsukamoto as Masuoka. Apart from a few conversations in the underworld, and the angry, desperate accusations of the "crazy woman." there is virtually no dialog, only the narrative observations of M., locking us in his imaginary world for most of the film. And although M. is searching for the intense emotional experience of ultimate horror, he remains distant and disconnected from the horrors he witnesses and creates until the final scenes of the film. In addition, the story has a strong mythological resonance - in particular the descent into the underworld sequence brings to mind Orpheus, Innanna, and countless other stories.

In short, this is an extremely well-handled version of a story that's been told many, many times before. It makes me wish I hadn't seen so many other versions of the story so that I could have enjoyed it that much more.

well hmmm... well...

[kakoilija · 4/10 · 9 February 2008]

OK at parts. but just too crappy at some other parts...

i mean i know the camera he is using pretty well... and the whole picture has been propably shot with that... but why put some cheezy TV-effect or reshoot through a monitor... i looks disgusting? this is a dv-movie. it is OK at being such... so there the three points. other than that nothing really astonishing here.

it really isn't great movie, but it's not a bad one. if you are starting to make movies then this is good to watch, what can be done with 30 000 Euros (40k $).

those dvcams are just so light that getting good hand held picture doesn't really work... looks kinda crappy. i think that they should have gotten a some steadyshot get better picture.

not that horrendous though... some interesting dialogue.

you could rent this if interested in dv-work... other than that maybe pass.

"Madness Is Contagious!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 24 September 2020]

MAREBITO is about a photographer named Masuoka (Shin'ya Tsukamoto) who is obsessed with terror, and descends into a nightmarish abyss.

Punctuated by both mythology and metaphor, this movie has an unsettling atmosphere throughout. If you enjoy a good ghost / vampire tale mixed with psychopathy and disturbing themes and images, then this should slake your thirst. Just imagine if Miike had directed JU ON, and you get a fairly good idea of what MAREBITO is like...

Had some great moments, but suffered from feeling slow.

[TheFilmGuy1 · 6/10 · 21 March 2014]

Marebito is the kind of horror film that relies on atmosphere and not loud noises to scare you. Sadly, the biggest problem with this film was its slow pace. It had some wonderfully interesting moments, but over all many scenes felt like they drag on. There's many different ways to interpret this film, which I love, and the ending is creepy enough to stay with you. I wish I was able to love this film, but I only loved specific moments, while the rest of the film left me underwhelmed. If you're looking for a unique Japanese horror film that will give you a major case of the creeps, check this out, but be prepared to be a little bored at times.

Review of Marebito (Japanese Vampire Movie)

[jimthor-13847 · 6/10 · 3 July 2016]

**** Possible Spoiler ****

Marebito is a Japanese made vampire film. It's from the view of a loner cameraman who becomes obsessed with a girl he finds in the caverns underneath the city.

I've seen about very Vampire movie there is...lol. It's my favorite genre. You have to like Vampire movies to enjoy this one. It's slow moving. It's a character builder type Vampire movie, not an action type movie. There are a lot of better Vampire movies out there, but if you've seen them all, then this is one you should see. Again, If Vampires are your thing, if not, then stay away from this one.

I watched it with subtitles. Not sure if it comes in an English version. I doubt it.

I gave it a 6/10 but the movie could have been so much better. It's a low budget Vampire Character building movie. Not bad though.

Jim W

Not what it seems. (spoilers)

[keithomusic · 6/10 · 2 January 2024]

I have a completely different view of this movie. Many people here focus on the girl and that he was 'saving' the girl. I see something that most probably won't agree with. What I saw, after watching more than half of the movie, was someone who is probably a serial killer, and also a child abuser. First, about half-way through the movie we find out he had a partner/spouse at one point, Later she mentioned they had a daughter, and her name was Fuyumi, probably the girl he was calling 'F', something he said he would never call her to her face, that right there is a form of abuse. Also he mentioned that the girl was probably fed only blood from a young age, how would he know that? He also regularly fed her blood, some of it animal, but we don't know if he used human blood or not at first. Then he kills two humans his ex and a random prostitute, we don't know if he killed more or not. And he kept her inside, and chained her up after she escaped once, It looks like he is being kind by buying her clothes and allowing her outside, as long as she was handcuffed to him, but that is just appearance. And at the end he cuts his tongue allegedly to feed the girl, I think it was a suicide attempt. (in Asian lore if you bite your tongue off you will bleed to death). I think this guy was not only a child abuser but a serial killer as well, And the movie is a look at how he sees the world. Still it is a decent movie, and worth a watch.

I took this film very literally

[missraze · 5/10 · 9 May 2016]

I did take this film very literally. I'm reading some other reviews and people have taken on a very abstract interpretation. That everything was symbolic. I hope this is their personal inference and not what the filmmaker has said in an interview paraphrased here because if so, the filmmaker might've been doing too much to legitimize a very unclear film.

I took it as: the underworld beneath the subway station was in fact a hallucination or if not him going mad, then obviously he didn't physically travel and end up in this otherworldly netherworld. So I left that alone and saw it as, it's some kind of metaphor, he's not actually here. Here he meets a ghostly young girl. He takes her home, tries to get her to adapt to his world, and finds she only likes blood.

OK well you know this film is very creepy. Of all the Japanese horror films I indulge myself in only the memory of this film and just typing about it made me look over my stupid shoulder. I know it's a horror film but that's why I don't like it. Because it's very potent in making you feel alone and it opens portals in your psyche that need not be opened, and fills them with things with which it need not be filled. Mainly because it's through the main character's disturbed eyes, particularly his camera. No idea why people say they hate the shaking camera as it's done in a documentary, homemade way intentionally.

Well anyway overtime the guy is harassed by a woman. She tries to go in his house, and eventually she yells to take care of his daughter. The film shows he kills her. I took it literally. That he did in fact kill her. I never thought of him murdering her as a metaphor for him emotionally ruining her after abandoning her. But that he really is sick and killed her. And I thought this because he had this creature girl he called F. And the woman, the mother of his child who he "killed," asked him, "Where's Fuyumi! I know you have her! Stop hiding her!" So I saw it as, "Oh. The girl is actually his daughter and he is sick and tortures her...and the mother knows...and suddenly reality hits home so he again abandons his daughter, kills his wife, and wanders off.

Apparently he emotionally killed his wife, not actually murdered her, and the girl isn't his daughter, just a representation of a part of his inner self that he doesn't understand. Hence why he found her in this abandoned fantasy of a location, that he basically said he was exploring out of bravery to discover the unknown. In this desolate "place," perhaps the representation of his inner self, he finds this starved half-dead thing in the form of a human female. Perhaps this female is the embodiment of his struggles.

That plot twist or purpose ruins it because it makes it just mind-weaving and no thanks. I will never watch this again, it's really disturbing. Not because it's a bad film, just because it's disturbing which is its purpose. If I weren't disturbed and if it were more clear, I'd give it a higher rating.

Interesting film

[jeffuary · 8/10 · 5 January 2006]

First off, I hated Ju-On. I thought it was derivative garbage of the J-horror variety (most J-Horror, which many American's think is "cult", is the equivalent of teen slasher flicks in their respective countries). That said, I was expecting nothing from this film. Instead, I got a Japanese David Cronenberg film, for all intents and purposes. This film would make an excellent companion piece to Cronenberg's Videodrome.

Both deal with technology and alienation in an urban setting. While in Videodrome it's the proliferation of mass media that causes the protagonists reality slip, here it's the creation of such media. The main character is a freelance videographer who makes a living filming the horrible things that people do to each other (and themselves) in the crowded yet isolated world of the big city. He eventually comes to understand that nothing is more cruel than what he does. He is, in a figurative sense, a vampire. He sucks the blood of the living into his lens, and thrives off the rewards. But he is lost.

Then he meets...a girl? A creature? A vampire? A hallucination? The fact that she has no recognizable emotion or attachment, and lives only to feed on the blood of people is a projection of what he is so ashamed of.

This film really gets into the feel of alienation (much the way "Clean, Shaven" and Cronenberg's "Spider" did) and makes you feel the way the populace who views his videos do. Disturbed, but secretly glad and thrilled that misery was put on film.

Which leads me to the presentation. Many have griped about the Digital Film approach, which, as most cinephiles know, leads to a harsh lighting scheme and stark contrasts- none of the lushness of film- and jerky movement feel. Shimizou could have easily done this on film if he had wanted to, but instead, I feel, made a choice to use digital...it's the same format that his protagonist records horrible images on. One turn deserves another. I enjoyed this aspect, as the presentation aspect of a film is rarely intrinsic to both the style and subtext of the film.

That said, it's not entirely successful. A few scenes could have used better FX work or shot choice/editing, but, hey, he shot this on the fly in 8 days, on his way to make another J-Horror "scary-kid" schlockfest. This film shows he is more capable than that. Fans of J-horror may want to avoid this, whereas if, like me, you're a fan of shock-cinema and narrative surrealism (Lynch, some Cronenberg, you) may enjoy this.

A Limited Budget But a Lot of Creativity

[Uriah43 · 7/10 · 7 March 2013]

After filming a man committing suicide in a Tokyo subway, "Masuoka" (Shin'ya Tsukamoto) becomes obsessed in his quest to understand what real fear feels like. Convinced that the answers lie deep underground in the Tokyo subways, he ventures into the tunnels and hidden passages to discover a young naked woman (Tomomi Miyashita) chained up within the heart of an enormous developed cavern. He then takes the young woman to his apartment and names her "F". However, as she grows weaker he frantically looks for a cure and discovers that she has a severe need for blood. He then goes about the city to procure it. At any rate, rather than reveal the entire story I will just say that this is an excellent example of what a good director (Takashi Shimizu) can do with a limited budget but a lot of creativity. Now, I will admit that I don't totally understand everything this film tries to get across as some of it may have been lost in translation. But with a little imagination I think most people will be able to enjoy it all the same.

Pretentious Nonsense - far better is available

[gunstar_hero · 4/10 · 27 September 2007]

'Marebito' is certainly better than your average US slasher flick, but don't expect much more than that.

At the start, with the emphasis on voyeurism, recorded death and vicarious experience, it teeters on becoming something impressive and somehow relevant to the omniscience, nihilism and anonymity of the digital age.

But the 'horror' aspects of this film completely ruin it. What begins so intriguingly becomes suddenly farcical, more akin to a sub-par episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both the 'discovery' of a fantasy underworld, and then the clumsy Frankenstein narrative, are irredeemably hackneyed story lines that the director attempts to conceal behind portentous dialogue, edgy security-camera footage and a naked young woman.

Like a lot of style-over-substance J-Horror films, the plot eventually comes to rely upon inexplicable twists and mysterious appearances that may excite some people's interest but in reality are the signs of bad writing and a half-baked story that can be modified with ease because nothing significant is taking place anyway.

As for the 'hollow world' philosophy - it begs belief how pretentiously the film takes this, as if it has hit upon an entirely new idea. 'Underworlds', however, are a staple of horror movies; backing this one up with the obscure work of an early 20th century sci-fi writer doesn't make it any more exciting or screen-worthy.

Overall 'Marebito' is disappointingly poor. Beautifully shot, atmospheric in places and all that, but artistically inert after the first twenty minutes and no more enjoyable than countless films that cover similar ground with much more panache and cinematic touch. It is the work of a complacent director and the product of a genre that all too easily loses itself in its own idiom.

Blood is soul

[borisduende · 10/10 · 11 January 2006]

This is a marvelous movie.

More than a psychological abyss than a straight horror, this little dagger stabs deeper than most of the pretentious psycho thrillers will ever.

Although this masterpiece is not for everyone. It offers a bunch of pretty disturbing scenes, but one has to watch it at least twice, in order to fully comprehend it's twisted metaphoric.

If you find this movie weird, just stop and think about how weirder is the whole mankind. Instead. Horrible thurths are revealed through this genius metaphor of vampyrism.

Cult director Shinya Tsukamoto (whom I'm a devotee) gives the hell out of a performance. This guy is either crazy, either true genius, either both. I'I'm so very impressed.

And a la fin, a quote from marebito: "Horror, is actually an ancient wisdom that we find deep in the memory of our souls....."

Shimizu + Tsukamoto = spooky...

[poe426 · 7/10 · 23 October 2008]

When reading H.P. Lovecraft's AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, one is overwhelmed by a sense of one's insignificance in the Grand Scheme of Things- like Shinya Tsukamoto's character in MAREBITO. (The scene where he first sees the Underworld from above immediately brought to mind the aforementioned Lovecraft.) That this movie was shot in just eight days is nothing short of miraculous. I've shot shorts on video that were done in less than a day, but (needless to say) they were nowhere near as polished nor as professional as what Shimizu has wrought. Tsukamoto is always fun to watch, whether in his own films or someone else's. Two of the best fright filmeisters for the price of one- now that's hard to beat!

sloppy and overrated

[TheShepherd · 1/10 · 8 April 2005]

Marebito kicked off the 'Danger After Dark' segment of the Philadelphia Film Festival tonight. I was at the first show, eagerly awaiting a new film by the director of Ju-on. In a short introduction by a festival host, i learned that the film was shot on all digital film in just 8 days immediately after filming The Grudge.

The story of Marebito is quite basic, but the delivery was sloppy at best. The film is split between clean digital film and a very dirty, grainy digital film. The grainy digital is supposed to be the main character's camera that he carries with him. Everything in the film is hand-held and although it gives the film a very realistic quality, the shaky camera gets old quickly. By the end of the film, I had the feeling that this was more of a poor student film, shot on a cheap DV camera with sloppy technique. Also, nearly all of the movie is done through voice over, which seems more than lazy.

Throughout the film, Shimizu misses many opportunities for scary moments or intriguing ideas. He has many interesting things going on like the telepathic homeless man, the Deros, the Underworld, the man on the phone, the fact that Masuoka can see the dead (sometimes? wtf?), his need to murder for 'F', the twelve seconds of missing tape, the smashed camera, the woman in the window, and the wife. However, instead of using each of these elements to their full extent, they are all abandoned in favor of showing 'F' sucking lots of blood. That's pretty much the majority of the film: watching 'F' suck blood with a voice-over. So many intriguing elements were simply forgotten by the director. When the film finally faded to black, I was highly disappointed that absolutely nothing was resolved. Overall, it seems as though this is a film that poses many questions, but offers no answers.