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.
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01/22/06
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Marebito (2004)
41
%
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Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:12
Rotten:17
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
It's actually a pretty lousy thriller.
02/03/06
Top CriticIt neither musters the campy horror of Ju-on nor follows through on its art-house potential.
04/23/09
Marebito feels like it's twice as long as it should be. It feels like an episode of a horror anthology show, stuffed to make it feature length.
12/09/05
[An] atmospheric, hypnotic digital video wonder.
03/16/06
It's just a little too interesting for its own good, a fascinating setup that leads to multiple conclusions -- none of them satisfying.
12/09/05
It is far from a completely successful experiment, but it does create something with a unique enough identity to be worth exploring.
07/12/08
The year's least frightening horror film.
12/12/05
As creepy as it is frustrating.
05/22/07
Marebito is a disturbing supernatural drama that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
12/30/05
Dreamy and atmospheric, Marebito is a better film than Ju-On: The Grudge.
12/06/05
Plot specifics are so muddy that part of the fun is getting lost in the narrative red herrings.
12/08/05
Any profound statement that Shimizu is making gets lost in translation, if it was ever there in the first place.
02/24/06
By 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
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 CriticShimizu 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
Marebito never gives us what it promised: a glorious, totally new sense of horror.
12/09/05
Top CriticAn outrageous horror flick from Japan.
12/09/05
For 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 CriticAnd 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
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