A curious stylistic diversion from Takashi Shimizu - director of JU-ON and its Hollywood remake, THE GRUDGE - MAREBITO is a refreshing SOV pocket-money project that contains a bit more thought-provoking material than his previous high-profile spook shows. It's not for everyone, thanks to a more cerebral, literary approach to the horrors within, as opposed to the flinch-inducing tactics employed by so many Asian horror flicks of late. It's more akin to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or THE LAST BROADCAST than its Japanese forebears... which to some could be a turn-off in itself. But I found this film's logic-twisting, disorienting style very effective.

Acclaimed TETSUO director Shinya Tsukamoto excels in the role of Masuoka, a quiet, disturbed and socially inept freelance videographer obsessed with macabre and supernatural subjects, and finding dark undercurrents to the minutia of everyday life. His squalid Tokyo apartment is filled to overflowing with video equipment, including a bank of monitors at his desktop editing station and numerous cameras trained on every nook and cranny of the cramped living space.

After his camera captures the graphic subway suicide of a disturbed man - who dies by plunging a knife into his brain through his eyeball - Masuoka's footage makes the evening news. Replaying the event over and over on his monitors, Masuoka becomes obsessed with the look of sheer horror in the man's eyes just before the blade plunges in. Questions begin to take over his mind: what did the man see that compelled him to gouge his own eyes out... and was he still looking at it when he died?

Masuoka's quest for the truth - intimately connected with his desire to experience the ultimate transcendent form of terror - leads him back to the suicide site where, with camera in hand, he explores a network of catacombs beneath Tokyo. As he descends, he begins to experience eerie phenomena at the edge of his perception, including a whale-like whistling call, and hairless albino humanoids who scuttle about on all fours... and that's only the beginning.

Masuoka has a friendly but creepy encounter with the dead man's ghost, who offers a bizarre description of the world our protagonist is about to enter, and references the works of cult author Richard Shaver (who imagined, and perhaps even believed in, the existence of humanoid robots called "Deros" embedded beneath the centers of every human civilization). Masuoka eventually stumbles upon the ruins of an ancient subterranean city (clearly derived from the domain of the Elder Gods in H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness"), where he makes his strangest discovery of all: a mute, naked girl with translucent skin and enlarged canine teeth, chained by the ankle in a stone alcove. Never hesitating to ponder why she might have been put there in the first place, he promptly takes her home to his flat. As you might imagine, this is where things start to go very, very wrong.

Masuoka's life, sanity and sense of reality quickly unravel as he tries to care for the emaciated creature (played by angelically beautiful Tomomi Miyashita), whom he names "F." We soon learn that which we pretty much suspected already: F is unable to feed on anything except blood. After nourishing the starving waif from his own slashed vein (which gives him an orgasmic rush), Masuoka eventually seeks other, less willing sanguinary sources, resulting in some of the film's most shocking scenes.

It's at this point the story becomes deliberately vague concerning the reality of Masuoka's situation. Having disclosed early in the film that he has stopped taking his Prozac in order to perceive true, unfiltered horror, it poses the question as to whether his nightmarish experiences exist entirely within his imagination, or if his perception has been warped by forces unknown... or even further, if he is being manipulated by these supernatural agents. Shortly after F's arrival, other figures start to drift in and out of his world - including a woman we are led to believe is Masuoka's ex-wife, inquiring urgently about the whereabouts of their daughter (whose name happens to begin with F... hmmm). A dark man in a dirty overcoat also begins stalking him, badgering him with phone calls (in a voice like Tom Waits before his morning coffee) warning him of the danger he has brought into his home.

The events which unfold in the final act will either chill or annoy you, depending on what you demand from your horror entertainment. No pat explanations are offered for what transpires, nor is anything neatly resolved in the end. Much like BLAIR WITCH, which dramatically polarized audiences by refusing to reveal the horrors it so effectively implied, MAREBITO plants itself firmly within a world created by its own fever-dream logic, and challenges the viewer to come up with their own conclusions. Personally, I love that sort of challenge, as long as the storytellers do not violate their own internal logic - and for the most part, I think Shimizu stays true to this framework. As in Lovecraft, very little of the "ultimate horror" is shown; it's the characters' intense reactions to these barely-imaginable apparitions that sell it. The final look of absolute doom in Masuoka's eyes demonstrates that he has finally attained the transcendent state of horror he was seeking... even if we're still not entirely sure what it is.

Tartan does a fine job with a classy presentation, from the DTS surround tracks (a vital enhancement, given that the film employs sound very effectively in creating its mood) to the haunting slipcase art. The HD digital video image - which contrasts dramatically with the low-end resolution of Masuoka's hand-held recordings - is rendered flawlessly in anamorphically-enhanced 1.78:1 format, with razor-sharp clarity (when required) and thick, dense fields of black in the shadow-draped locations. Those without DTS decoders (sadly, including myself) can still find satisfaction in a resonant Dolby 5.1 mix, which is perhaps a bit too rumbly in spots, but otherwise takes total command of the sonic spectrum to create a nightmarish web of disorienting sound effects. Also available is an excellent stereo mix that achieves much of the same effect.

Extras are bland, but at least informative, coming mostly in the form of interviews with the director and star, as well as producer Hiroshi Takahashi. Of these, Tsukamoto is the most interesting, as he not only explains how he envisioned his character, but spends some time talking about his own directorial efforts, many of which have become legends in the genre. Also included is the shiver-inducing trailer for the film, as well as trailers for many other Tartan "Asia Extreme" titles.

A refreshing diversion from the tapped-out (and now thoroughly assimilated) conventions of Asian horror, i.e. long-haired ghost girls (per RINGU and its ten thousand clones) or absurdist gore setpieces (the Takashi Miike formula et al), MAREBITO more resembles Coppola's THE CONVERSATION by way of Polanski's REPULSION, spliced with the aforementioned Lovecraftian elements - resulting in a surreal, intelligent and nightmarish voyage that offers few overt shocks, but provides something far more precious: a pervasive sense of dread that sticks with you long after the end credits roll. It's an elusive quality that very few films have fully achieved, but when it's done right, you'll know it... maybe not immediately, but after you've moved on, maybe even the next day, you may find that feeling creeping up from your unconscious mind. How well does Shimizu accomplish this? Find out for yourself.