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Critics Consensus: The scares are lacking in this J-horror flick, and the plot soon turns half-baked.
Critic Consensus: The scares are lacking in this J-horror flick, and the plot soon turns half-baked.
All Critics (29) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (11) | Rotten (18) | DVD (4)
The gloppy sound effects are so over-the-top, they invite laughter, and the bloodsucking scenes are allowed to become absurdly repetitious.
It's actually a pretty lousy thriller.
Marebito is a disturbing supernatural drama that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Marebito is no conventional vampire movie but a speculation into the notion that ancient people could sense alien beings in their midst.
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.
For Japanese horror aficionados only, and even they are likely to be underwhelmed by this stew of half-baked ideas and creepy sensations.
An almost stunningly incompetent piece of work...
It neither musters the campy horror of Ju-on nor follows through on its art-house potential.
It is far from a completely successful experiment, but it does create something with a unique enough identity to be worth exploring.
As creepy as it is frustrating.
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.
[An] atmospheric, hypnotic digital video wonder.
A slow but eerie and interesting bit of urban horror as a man enters a subterrainian hell via the metro system and finds a naked, animal-like woman who he brings to the surface in an attempt to tame her. There's more going on than meets the eye and it's down to the viewers patience to stay with it and get what you will from the plot, which isn't explained in great detail in some cases. I thought it was watchable and intriguing enough to see it through. It lacks the usual thrills that I look for in horror films, despite the occassional bloody moment. It's a decent effort overall, especially as it was made in just 8 days. But not my favourite from Shimizu, miles better than Shock Labyrinth though!
Super Reviewer
Cryptic, self-important pabulum, Marebito is just a cheap side project between the Grudge movies, as admitted by Takashi Shimizu himself. There's nothing like hiding a low budget and a total lack of ideas behind smoke, mirrors and psychobabble; J-horror in general does this, but it seems particularly fatuous here, as the film flirts with some concepts that would make it seem deep but really are complete dead ends. It name-drops Madame Blavatsky, Kaspar Hauser AND M.C. Escher in a span of about five minutes, but the climactic action is a schoolgirl getting stabbed on video camera, so there's a clear conflict of interest here. It's as if the movie thinks it's hot shit for flashing its intellectual feathers and then turning around and SHOCKING YOU with left-field violence, but seriously, zzzzz. This isn't to discredit Marebito completely, though. Maybe it's my long-standing bias for the genre, but it does achieve a basic sense of intrigue. There are some pretty sharp visual representations of voyeurism and the unknown, and the horror imagery sometimes works (but sometimes doesn't, such as the ridiculous-looking man in sunglasses). The performances are a mixed bag. Shinya Tsukamoto is bad as the insulated, unhinged loner, unable to rein in his inherent ridiculousness. Tomomi Miyashita fares better as F, although the part's degrading and not particularly wide expressively. They don't really seem to have much chemistry, which really causes the ending to fall flat, much like Marebito's other attempts to shock. It's a little bit more brutal than most of its compatriots, but also a lot dumber and a lot cheaper, and its attempts to depict madness really just make it risible. I can't recommend this to much of anyone, unless you're a total J-horror completist.
There is something that?s always a litte different about Asian Horror, thou this one isn't one to send a chill up or down your spine, it does have its moments, like near the end of the film when our free lance camera man puts a box cutter in his mouth and slashes away. Story is about this cameraman and his dwell into the netherworld or sub world in which he finds a girl chained up in a cave, he rescues her to try and save her, only to find out she lives off Human Blood, ahh so now we have a serious problem. Worth 3 1/2 stars
The style of the film takes a while to get into, but if you can manage it, it is worth it. The dialogue strays at times into philosophical/conspiracy theory/pretentious (depending on your view) areas, and the surrealism will turn a lot of viewers off, but aficionados of Asian, 'extreme' and vampire cinema should give it a try - if only to say that you've watched it.
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