loogenhausen 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!

Claudio Carvalho 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")

christopher-underwood This is some movie. At first deceptively simple and later maybe deceptively involved. Such was the confident manner of the director, Takashi Shimizu, I just went along despite everything and whilst it is difficult to associate with the lead character, the mighty, actor/director (Tetsuo) Shinya Tsuramoto, eventually persuades. Not an easy film to watch with its flashing and even blank screen moments, not to mention the horrific violence, but once this has you hooked, it is difficult to escape. Everything is unbelievable and yet there is a niggling doubt that just maybe things are this bad. Tsuramoto gives a towering performance as a completely lost soul searching it seems for almost anything to justify his existence. What he finds is not a pretty sight but this movie remains with you, for good or bad, long after viewing. Bold and original film making.

gunstar_hero '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.