It is far from a completely successful experiment, but it does create something with a unique enough identity to be worth exploring.
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07/12/08
Marebito (2004)
43 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 28
Fresh: 12
Rotten:16
Average Rating: 5.2/10
Consensus: The scares are lacking in this J-horror flick, and the plot soon turns half-baked.
Theatrical Release:Dec 9, 2005 Limited
Synopsis: Japanese director Takashi Shimizu (JU-ON) presents another slice of atmospheric J-horror with his gory frightfest MAREBITO. In an inspired bit of casting, real-life director Shinya Tsukamoto... [More]
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Reviews for Marebito
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05/22/07
It drops names such as Madame Blavatsky for gravitas, but has as little to do with theosophy as a Westerner has to do with chopsticks.
02/20/07
[An] atmospheric, hypnotic digital video wonder.
03/16/06
Any profound statement that Shimizu is making gets lost in translation, if it was ever there in the first place.
02/24/06
The gloppy sound effects are so over-the-top, they invite laughter, and the bloodsucking scenes are allowed to become absurdly repetitious.
02/03/06
It's actually a pretty lousy thriller.
02/03/06
Top CriticIt's not really scary, but it reaches a level of insanity so unhinged and dispassionately wretched that it defies description.
02/02/06
Shimizu has done what compatriots such as Hideo Nakata have not yet managed to do: make a contemporary Japanese horror movie that has some new ideas in it.
01/26/06
Shimizu doesn't quite achieve the ostensible goal of Marebito's verite style and purposefully low-tech execution: to pervert our sense of what is real.
01/22/06
Marebito is a disturbing supernatural drama that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
12/30/05
Top CriticBy the end, the story's ambiguities begin to cancel each other out, leaving us with no good readings rather than a multitude of valid ones.
12/15/05
The year's least frightening horror film.
12/12/05
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12/11/05
Marebito is no conventional vampire movie but a speculation into the notion that ancient people could sense alien beings in their midst.
12/09/05
Top CriticShot on digital video as murky as Masuoka's imagination, its creeping sense of dank dread is as slow to build as it is hard to shake.
12/09/05
The look of the film, and the gore, meld into the real and unreal of this hero's journey. But the journey is muddled, and at times unintentionally funny.
12/09/05
And if the trip doesn't have the clear-cut directions of a Hollywood film, it has all the ideas -- and cold, unsettling flights of fantasy -- of a nightmare, where faceless people look and look and look, but never see.
12/09/05
Top CriticFor Japanese horror aficionados only, and even they are likely to be underwhelmed by this stew of half-baked ideas and creepy sensations.
12/09/05
Top CriticAn outrageous horror flick from Japan.
12/09/05
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