Marebito (2004)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

**** 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

This movie seemed to derive itself from the works of Abe Kobo, a Japanese existentialist novelist who created vast unseen worlds. The underworld presented in this book was much like those of Abe. The main character has no charisma and evokes no sympathy; however, as a viewer, I couldn't wait to see the next thing that would happen to him. He is a man obsessed by video, video-taping his whole day, then reviewing the tapes until late into the evening.A suicide, which he films, starts him on his journey into the underworld. He comes back with a mute vampire, who he is compelled to feed, eventually through a couple of matter-of-fact and video-documented murders. The movie is low-budget: The underworld is spiral stairways and municipal tunnels opening to what looks like a mountain-scape. None of these venues look like sets, but have a more mundane feel. The acting and directing is solid. I was disappointed by the ending which, I must confess, I didn't "get"...

The main character, Masuoko, is looking for answers through the lens of a camera. He's obsessed with recapturing the terror he's seen on faces he's filmed, a feeling he says he's lost and can no longer experience.He wanders Tokyo with a camera attached to his face and becomes an observer so tightly connected to his lens that at times he appears to forget that people can see him. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that he is becoming more and more disconnected from reality and humanity.He is guided by mysterious strangers to discover a beautiful but dangerous underworld where he finds a feral woman in captivity. He frees her and brings her to his home where he tries to nourish her to health—which is odd for a man who's been so apathetic up until now. His efforts are to no avail until he discovers she craves blood.Directed by Takashi Shimizu, who also directed Ju-on, this was no where near as captivating for me. It moved very, very slowly, which may have been an attempt to convey the main character's experience and quality of life.To me, this is almost like two separate films, akin to From Dusk Till Dawn, where the first half is sort of sick and violent and depressing, and the second half is a weird and eerie trip into a monster-movie.But this movie deliberately refuses to become exciting and remains subdued while interesting things are happening, which left me bored and wanting the movie to end already.I probably didn't "get" this movie, but even if I did, I can't say that the experience would have been much better. I did like the score, which conveyed more feeling than most of the performances did (on purpose).

'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.