Marebito (DVD)

I liked Takashi Shimizu's Ju-On and didn't much care for his American remake (2003's The Grudge). But reading the premise of Marebito, I was interested: A free-lance cameraman captures a man's suicide on video and becomes obsessed with the man's terrifying look on his face before he stabs himself in the head (you read that right, homeboy goes Rambo on his own skull). What could have scared this man so badly that he would have to resort to suicide? Many films' central conflict is about its lead character trying to escape fear. In Marebito, the lead (played by actor-director Shinya Tsukamato) is trying to find that fear. He is curious, he wants to know how it feels to be absolutely terrified. The film delves into some urban legends involving underground dwellings and the ghosts that haunt them but this is all pretty much metaphor. As reality slips away from our protagonist, reality invokes some serious consequences that are revealed in the third act.

I'm probably making Marebito sound like an interesting movie and that's probably because it is...on paper. But in truth, this movie sucks. It just does. I wanted to like it but I couldn't delude myself. It is such a painful experience to watch I could not wait for it to end. I remember grabbing the DVD box halfway through to check the running time and tears of joy fell from my cheeks when I found it was only 90 minutes long. I know a lot of hardcore J-horror fans are going to try and come at me with their clubs and red jumpsuits, but let'em come because this movie blew. The frustrating thing about the movie is it has some wonderful ideas and legitmately original territory that is explored. Especially if I were to reveal the twists uncovered in the third act but even those twists are badly mishandled and they lose any potential of emotional power. The viewer is made so numb it is hard to care about anything that happens and it is a shame. This could have been one hell of a ride.

Marebito was shot digitally on a low budget in 8 days and I could give a cheap shot and say it looks it but truthfully, it's pretty impressive the amount of material Shimizu covered in that span of time. Not so impressive is the quality of the picture which looks like it was shot with my broken 16mm. Shimizu also makes the mistake of trying some low-rent special effects with his digital work that looks so Mighty Morphin Power Rangers-cheesy you might wonder if the effects were a result of one of his camera's special feature options. I was shocked to see he didn't use the negative composition feature (always fun at parties).

The special features are as much of a disappointment as the movie. All you're really going to find are three interviews with the flick's actor, director and producer. All three interviews are pretty darn interesting, especially Tsukamato's because he really gets into some of the flick's text) but they look like they were filmed by a five year-old who was just handed the camera for the first time. The camera shakes and bounces around like its hopped up on something and it was everything I could do from not vomiting my Jersey Mike's BLT. You'd think once the interview started it would be smooth sailing: just hold the camera, dude. But no, the cameraman just can't seem to get himself comfortable and shifts and turns and wobbles around as if he has explosive diarrhea or something. Amazingly, at one point in Shimizu's interview, the cameraman inexplicably zooms past the director's shoulder to the glass window emitting light behind him. I watched, stunned that he could be so disrespectful to Shimizu as he was speaking, asking myself, What is he, a friggin' insect? Amazingly, this was probably the most entertaining aspect of the DVD experience and I can't help but wonder if the cameraman was as pissed as I was at having to sit through this piece. Hey, the main character of the movie is a cameraman too. Hmm. There is an irony here somewhere, but Marebito is not a film worth exploring any further.