Marebito

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Poor Takashi Shimizu. He essentially made the Grudge 6 times in a row and this little film (IMDB refers to it as The Stranger From Afar for some reason), which he shot in 8 days in between the Japanese remake of his sequel and his American remake of the first remake, was pretty much his only other output. It's ok though he's making other stuff now, I think he's all grudged out.

Some slivers of iconography from those films are carried over into this one but on the whole it feels much more like a slow, existential horror, some short graphic parts, all about building the fear and definitely some Lovecraftian influences.

It's a bit of a head scratcher. Some of it is quite effective and some of it falls flat. I think there's just too much Japaneseness that gets in the way. I love some of the ideas in the film but they aren't delivered in a very neat package.

It's been a while since I first saw this so I thought I'd give it another go. But it turns out it wasn't my memories of the film that were vague, it's just how the film is.

I really don't know how I feel about this one. Still.