by SARAH ROWLAND

Japanese horror director Takashi Shimizu made a pretty big name for himself in cinephile circles with his Ju-On films—a genuinely freaky franchise about a mother/son ghost team that haunts all those who come into contact with the house where Daddy dearest slaughtered them. Shimizu’s latest North American import, however, smacks of someone who wants to reinvent himself. In Marebito, he leaves behind all his stylized scare tactics in lieu of a more stripped down, hand-held approach to fear-mongering. And the results are mixed.

Set in Tokyo, the film follows one man’s quest to better understand what true terror is. It all starts in the metro, where freelance camera man Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto) happens to have his camera rolling when a terrified senior fatally stabs himself in the eye. After hours of playback on his multiple screens, Masuoka can’t seem to stop pausing on the last frame right before the geezer takes his own life. Obsessed with finding out what put so much fear into the man’s stare, Masuoka decides to return to the scene of the subway suicide.

This leads him to an underground netherworld where subterranean zombies called DEROs supposedly roam free—well most of them do anyway. Masuoka stumbles upon one beautiful naked creature chained to a rock and decides to take her home with him, where it becomes apparent there’s something a little off about his pet DERO. And without giving too much away, lets just say Masuoka finds out through trial and error what her exceptionally long fangs are used for.

Tsukamoto gives a strong performance as a delusional sociopath who is quite convinced of his own sanity—regardless of his increasingly violent behaviour. But despite the stellar acting, Marebito feels less like the product of a seasoned vet and more like a student project. Who knows? Maybe Shimizu wanted to get back to basics to compensate for his big American spectacle The Grudge (the U.S. version of Ju-On, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar), or perhaps he thought a metro monster movie done with Blair Witch ethos would translate better on the big screen. Whatever his motivation was, it didn’t really work and you’re better off renting the original Ju-On.

Marebito opens at Cinéma du Parc on Friday, Jan. 27

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