Marebito starts out with an interesting premise, but somewhere along the way the movie falls apart.
A camera man captures a man in the subway committing suicide by stabbing himself in the eye. The camera man becomes transfixed by the death image of the man and studies the footage with the hopes of finding a clue as to why the man would commit such an act. He surmises that the man has experienced something so terrifying immediately before his death as to render him suicidal. So the camera man ventures into the subway for clues and finds a door that leads even further down into the subway. The beginning part of the film captured my interest.
Too bad.
What the main lead uncovers...actually what he finds beneath the subway...and what unfolds thereafter is incredibly dull. The rest of the film becomes a jumbled mess as the main character tries to rationalize, in his more and more irrational mind, the supernatural events that unfold. But the film looks rushed and uninspired...it does look like it was filmed in two weeks.
I thought Ju-on was creepy and fairly good as a horror film. The director's effort on this film is unfocused and meandering; he even interlaces at points in the film, clumsily I might add, with discussions of philosophy and the supernatural in the hopes, I suppose, of lending the film some gravitas. Is the director trying to be metaphorical and deliberately obtuse? I don't know and I did not care.
Because I found some parts of the film creepy and even innovative, I rate this film: Average.
