Marebito

R

Released Dec 9, 2005

1h 32m

Horror

Drama

Fantasy

List

36%

Tomatometer

28 Reviews

50%

Audience Score

10,000+ Ratings

A cameraman (Shin'ya Tsukamoto) who is obsessed with fear brings a blood-drinking woman (Tomomi Miyashita) back from a nether world of Tokyo.

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Critics Consensus

The scares are lacking in this J-horror flick, and the plot soon turns half-baked.

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John Hartl

Seattle Times

The gloppy sound effects are so over-the-top, they invite laughter, and the bloodsucking scenes are allowed to become absurdly repetitious.

Rated: 2/4

Feb 3, 2006

Full Review

Wesley Morris

Boston Globe

It's actually a pretty lousy thriller.

Rated: 1.5/4

Feb 3, 2006

Full Review

Marrit Ingman

Austin Chronicle

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.

Rated: 2.5/5

Jan 22, 2006

Full Review

David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

An almost stunningly incompetent piece of work...

Rated: 0/4

Jan 27, 2013

Full Review

Mattias Frey

Boston Phoenix

It neither musters the campy horror of Ju-on nor follows through on its art-house potential.

Rated: 2/4

Apr 23, 2009

Full Review

Steve Biodrowski

ESplatter

It is far from a completely successful experiment, but it does create something with a unique enough identity to be worth exploring.

Jul 12, 2008

Full Review

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Little M

The movie had major potential but the lack in story telling and theme of the movie did not stick, lack of intriguing, music, trying to convey this genre is very hard to do . Sadly this movie fell short with just weirdness. Some scenes started to move in a better direction / promising but only to disappoint.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

04/30/24

Full Review

Colette B

I think Marebito is an overlooked gem of j-horror. It is not meant to be a scare-a-thon , It is more a philosophical mediation on the nature of identity and the desire to find meaning in a world seemingly absent of it. It is one of Shimizu's best films but rarely talked or written about which is a shame.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

07/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

After watching this film I found it to be more of a drama than horror (there's nothing scary about it) and I found it to be very basic and not that entertaining (I had it as a 2*). Then after reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/HorrorReviewed/comments/7hrypz/marebito_2004_horrormystery/ I realized that I totally missed the real point of the movie and that the symbolism in this movie went way over my head. Hence a 3* now. Its extremely open-ended (from what everyone else says) and no single interpretation is correct (there are 1-2 scenes/details that negate every theory. The theory I like is that this movie was from the POV of an unreliable narrator (bc he stopped taking his medication) and that this movie was about an isolated disjointed man who didn't have feelings and his quest to be at peace with his past and change into someone who has feelings and isn't so isolated (read the comments in the link I pasted for more details. Its explained very well there). Regardless it's not a movie that's very exciting or scary/creepy, so if you're looking for scares, this movie isn't going to cut it.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

"Marebito" constituye una interesante época en el cine de terror japonés que hoy en día ya no se disfruta (salvo en determinadas ocasiones). Se puede decir que este film toma el riesgo de ser algo diferente...pero sin una definición clara del rumbo que quiere tomar. Sea esto adrede o no, lo cierto es que su director, Takashi Shimizu, logra capturar momentos de desconcertante tensión, al mismo tiempo que juega con efectos prácticos y locaciones reales para constituir su "fábula de lo desconocido". La película nos pone en la carne de una persona que ha dejado de sentir conexión alguna por la sociedad, que se muestra apática, decepcionada, e inmutable ante lo más grotesco que la humanidad tiene para ofrecer. Siendo un camarógrafo freelancer, toma las riendas de su obsesión con el horror que atestiguó una persona registrada en su cámara, de tal forma que él también pueda experimentar esa misma sensación...ya que no es capaz de sentir absolutamente nada más. Esa frustración de "sentirse vivo" a través del mido, lo lleva a lo más profundo de los canales subterráneos de Tokio, hallando el camino hacia otro mundo (en una clara inspiración de los trabajos de ficción de Lovecraft) donde conocerá a una criatura de aspecto femenino y de predilección por la sangre humana. La premisa del film es realmente interesante, sobretodo porque se juega con las posibilidades de inmiscuirse en una mente tan frívola como la del protagonista, de tal forma que podemos ser testigos de varios hechos perturbadores, y sin que éstos nos lleguen a afectar del todo (...o al menos, para los espectadores que logran empatizar más fácilmente con todo tipo de personajes). La edición, tosca y con una paleta de colores muy reducida, realza el ambiente depresivo y misterioso del film. Adicionalmente, se nos dan algunas pistas para intuir que, tal vez, no todo es lo que parece. Y allí es donde recae el mayor problema del film...que nunca da una respuesta clara en sus intenciones narrativas. Se juegan con muchas posibilidades, pero no se aprovechan al 100%. El cliffhanger que se ofrece al final, tampoco llega a ser satisfactorio del todo, pues hasta cierto punto se siente anti climático y no logra transmitir del todo la sensación de horror absoluto que el protagonista tanto buscaba perseguir. Por tanto, este film funciona a la perfección si se le toma como un "experimento", con algunas matices de terror y de ficción. No es el mejor trabajo de su director, pero tiene la suficiente atmósfera de "cine oculto" como para que deje una buena impresión en determinado tipo de espectadores que busquen con entusiasmo films de este estilo (como el protagonista con su extraña fijación por el horror definitivo).

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I think this movie is for the fans of Takashi Shimizu and for them only. The plot leaves alot to be desired and keeps me guessing what's actually going on.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/02/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Shin'ya Tsukamoto stars as a camera man who witnesses a man's suicide in the subway tunnels and becomes driven to find out what drove him to it. He finds tunnels under the subway station that lead to an ancient city, where he finds a young naked woman chained to a wall. He takes her home with him, but cannot get her to speak or eat. He discovers that her only diet is blood, and soon he's killing women and bringing their blood home for her. Nothing at all is what it seems to be in this film. It was shot in 8 days on digital video between Shimizu's direction of "Ju-On: The Grudge" and it's American remake. I like it ... everything has a sense of terrible foreboding.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/01/23

Full Review

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Takashi Shimizu

Director

Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Masuoka

Tomomi Miyashita

F

Kazuhiro Nakahara

Arei Furoki

Miho Ninagawa

Aya Fukumoto

Shun Sugata

MIB

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Synopsis

A cameraman (Shin'ya Tsukamoto) who is obsessed with fear brings a blood-drinking woman (Tomomi Miyashita) back from a nether world of Tokyo.

Director: Takashi Shimizu
Screenwriter: Chiaki Konaka
Distributor: Tartan
Production Co: Walt Disney Productions
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Drama, Fantasy
Original Language: Japanese
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 9, 2005, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 19, 2010
Box Office (Gross USA): $13.9K
Runtime: 1h 32m

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