Marebito

Review

Without a doubt this has to be one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time. I understand that, at times, there needs to be a “suspension of disbelief” while you watch some movies, but this one would need a complete suspension of all intelligent thinking processes in order to be acceptable.

There are failures of just plain logic in this film that would drive Spock to tears. The film is disjointed, there is way, way, way too much of it that appears to be through the camcorders lens (when it doesn't need to be), and parts of the movie are simply boring.

As far as acting goes, the main female character does a remarkable job, considering that she only says half a dozen words during the entire movie. The major male character manages to retain the same expression on his face for maybe 95% of the film. The rest of the characters sort of act.

This is one massively disappointing movie. Don't watch it unless you want to do a misting job on it.

Synopsis

An incredibly annoying form of opening in what, thank goodness, is a relatively short section of the film.

The guy has been taping some woman he thinks has a substance abuse problem. As you can see, the annoying form of video is still being used. It only stopped for a few moments.

A suicide at a subway is captured on film. The guy watching thinks the guy who killed himself did it because he was scared of something he was seeing. The guy watching has some pretty heavy psychological problems of his own, in my opinion. Lots of blood and gore in the early part of the film.

The guy stands on an overpass and leans over. (Again, the film goes back to the annoying approach.)

Point of logic here. Is this guy, who so far has not been established as actually having a job, going to have enough money to have all this electronic equipment (which is all going at once and he's supposed to be watching all the different images, apparently.) All of a sudden he starts to see lots of strange images (and more annoying video).

Prozac? This dude needs thorazine or something stronger. He has MAJOR issues.

The guy keeps going down stairs and finds big places with lots of pipes (and lots of sunlight coming in from outside. Wasn't he supposed to be in a subway?. You know, one of those UNDERGROUND places.)

The guy keeps filming as he's walking down the steps (looking through the lens and just ASKING to fall!) and he finally spots something unusual (other than himself.) He finds a strange, small door, and says “fear of the unknown compels me to open the door.” I think it's more like abnormally high stupidity.

He thinks some of the constructions he's finding are left over from World War Two. (And there were some underground structures built to resist bombing; that's an established fact.)

He finds a homeless person that tells him to get away. The guy talks about deros who seem to be a form of vampire.

While he's resting some guy with a lantern comes along. He knows the guy. The guy says that all populated cities have vast underground areas like Tokyo. (The guy is the one who killed himself in the subway).

The guy explains the meaning of “deros.”

He finds an underground chamber.

He finds some underground ruins. (And he's been exploring for how many hours? And hasn't eaten anything, drunk anything, or gone to the restroom?) Also, he is UNDERGROUND. In a CHAMBER. WHERE IS THE LIGHT COMING FROM???? How long does his camcorder battery last?

Why does he still have the vcr camera light on? On the other hand, it's a neat scene.

He finds a totally nude woman chained to the rock.

He's brought her back to his apartment which raises just a few minor questions. How did he get the chain off of her when he wasn't carrying any tools? How did he get her to follow him (he is in no physical condition to carry her all the way.) How did he get a nude woman all the way back to his apartment without anyone questioning him (even if he gave her his coat to wear it's still be obvious she was nude.) Why was she chained up? Who chained her up? Why do they make films this bad?

She appears to be mute. As for what the guy is saying, how does he know that? Did she come with a manual of some kind?

The guy goes to the mall and buys some clothes for her. He's also watching her on his cell phone. Suddenly a guy is right behind him.

When he gets home there's a strange woman in the stairwell. When he gets into the apartment he finds that the girl is having seizures of some kind. So he tries to give her some milk to drink. (Now there's a new solution for someone having seizures; give them milk.) He also finds something odd has happened to his video equipment for a short time.

He gets a phone call. The voice on the phone tells him that he's in serious trouble. The voice says the woman should not be there and that he's killing her.

He gets beat up by a guy who breaks his camera. He then goes back to his apartment building and sees the one woman outside.

The girl crawls over to where he's holding the finger he cut earlier. She licks the blood off of it. He then cuts himself on purpose and she licks up spilled blood from the floor.

He feeds her animal blood but he says she prefers human blood.

The one woman confronts him and says someone is missing.

His apartment has been broken into and lots of things destroyed. The girl is gone.

He runs into the guy from the mall. He gets back to his apartment and she's there.

He puts a leg chain on her. When he's out the next day the woman from before confronts him again. He kills her and collects her blood.

He then somehow manages to get the containers of blood home without anybody questioning him. He feeds the girl a baby bottle with the supposed blood in it. He kills a girl for more blood.

The next day the news covers the school girl's death (and he's the one filming it.)

He then takes F (his name for the girl) outside.

He lets her take some of his blood. He goes to sleep and then he leaves her.

He's sitting by some water and he sees the ghost of the guy who killed himself at the start of the film. He asks the guy what he saw in the subway that scared him so. Masuoka has also been talking about humans being a degenerate species, and that our ancestors had better perceptions. The ghost says terror is part of ancient wisdom. Later Masuoka talks about having killed his wife and daughter.

He becomes a homeless person, wanders around, sees two deros, and finds a cell phone that's ringing. He picks it up and hears strange noises.

He realizes the girl is still in his apartment and he goes back there, getting in an elevator. Someone suddenly appears to be in the elevator with him.

“F” is still in his apartment. She also finally speaks. He cuts his mouth open so she can feed on more of his blood.

She takes him with her back to her world.

She ends up nude again and she's filming him.

In an interview with the director he states that the woman who played “F” was very, very dedicated and very talented in the types of movements she used. The screenplay apparently had the character as a young girl, but since there were nude scenes they had to use a woman old enough so that they would not get in trouble with the law for the nude scenes. He says the actress was so dedicated there is a rumor she was nude at home and walked around on all fours and even took lessons from the dancers playing the deros in the movie about how to move in an inhuman fashion.

The front cover of the container is also interesting, in that it shows the girl from the cavern, but (a) she's dressed, and (b) the leg chain isn't attached.


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