Review of Marebito (2004) by Kelli B — 18 Oct 2015

A strange little movie that takes a lot of inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft. With this being the director of one of the most famous horror movies of the 21st century (The Grudge), that sounds like an interesting concept.

But no. It's not. The monsters look laughable, and they cut away or distort the image so they don't show too much of how goofy they look. The plot centers around a man who wants to see something that will terrify him or something that will drive him insane (I don't know, his mind seems to change as the movie goes on).

He finds this underground tunnel that leads to the netherworld, a large cavern. There he finds a girl chained down and he takes her back to his place. The rest of the movie deals with him taking care of this girl.

There are twists and turns, but none of it interesting. Actually, the first 30 minutes were pretty promising when he is descending into a new world and looking for horror. It's when he returns to the real world that everything goes downhill.

The entire movie is shot switching back and forth between the more film look (which I think was video though) and a crappy distorted video. The director was trying to implement some sort of artistic vision (I think), but almost no shot in this movie works.

It's impressive to fail at that sort of level. The movie was strange enough to hold my interest throughout, but towards the end I just wanted it to be over. No re-watch value and nothing memorable.