Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a look at the Philadelphia Film Festival... specifically a highlight of their midnight selection called Danger After Dark. Being a horror buff, these are usually my favorite programs at film festivals, so it's really cool to get a rundown of all things genre from Philly.

First up is a look at Takashi Shimizu (JU-ON: THE GRUDGE and it's American remake)'s newest flick MAREBITO. Now, I saw this the American Film Market last November as a huge fan of his original JU-ON and, like most of the stuff I saw at the AFM last year, I didn't care much at all for MAREBITO. Matter of fact, I'd say it sucks a nut. Sure, it has a few creepy images, but the movie makes no sense (not in a good David Lynch way) and falls into a weird, pretentious and (worst of all) boring level. To me... Well, to me, and the entire roomful of people I saw it with. More than 3/4ths of the room had walked out by the time it was over.

HOWEVER, it seems that the below reviewer found a lot to like in the movie. I don't agree with him, but I'm glad someone out there got some enjoyment out of this flick. Here is that review and I'll be back below it to intro a single report that has almost the entire run of Danger After Dark from the fest!

Hello Harry, or whoever it is that reads these things,

I didn't see any reviews (although I might have just missed them) for the new Takashi Shimizu movie, Marebito, on AICN, so I thought I'd send mine in. This is the only movie I've managed to catch at the Philadelphia Film Festival so far, but it's a fairly good one, so I don't mind so much.

Marebito is the story of a man named Masuoka who happens to be in a subway station at the right time to videotape a man's suicide. He watches the tape over and over again, and he becomes obsessed with the look of terror in the man's eyes. Masuoka goes back to the subway station and follows a series of stairways down to a seemingly-endless tunnel system. He meets the dead man, who tells him about underground cities and monsters that drink blood. Then, the man disappears, and Masuoka wanders off to what he calls the Mountains of Madness (perhaps a Lovecraft reference), where he finds a young woman, naked and chained to a wall. So, he takes her home to his apartment. Well, what would you do? The girl is feral, not quite human. She has small fangs. She doesn't talk, and she won't eat or drink anything. Eventually, Masuoki realizes that what the girl needs is blood.

There are some great, incredibly disturbing images in this movie: A man shoving a knife through his own eye, the girl drinking blood from a baby's bottle, people walking down the street with their faces blurred, and a rather unnerving kiss near the end. Of course, a lot of the intensity in these scenes comes from the sound effects, which are grotesquely exaggerated. I mean, they just sound really messy.

Now, mind you, it's not exactly perfect. They lean a little too heavily on the voice-overs to clarify plot points, and the big explanation near the end has a couple of holes in its logic.

Still, Marebito makes up for these flaws with its oppressive atmosphere and with a strong lead performance from Shinya Tsukamoto. Everything in this movie is creepy. Even the plot holes seem to have some sinister purpose.

Mostly, what I liked was the refreshing lack of similarity to the current Japanese horror trend. It's not that I don't like Ringu and Ju-On, but I'm getting a little tired of all the rip-offs.

Oh, and if some kind of pen-name is required for these reviews, then I guess you can call me Fat Paul.

Now we have a batch of good stuff. With the exception of IZO, which I found really, REALLY hard to get through even though I'm a die hard Miike fan, I haven't seen any of these flicks. This SURVIVE STYLE 5+ sounds like fun! What do you folks think?

I was glad to see you giving a little face time to the Philly Festival with the post from Ade. I was planning on sending in a report tonight after my first full day of screenings. Like Ade, I most look forward to the Danger After Dark and so far have not been disapointed. As of Monday night, I've been to 6 screenings :

Survive Style 5+

I went into this screening cold and wasn't sure what to expect. The film was introduced by Travis Crawford, who programs the Danger After Dark slate for the festival. He said he would call Survive Style the best film in the D.A.D. program if it weren't for Old Boy. After seeing the film, I would have to agree whole heartedly. Survive Style is a laugh out loud comedy with five intersecting storylines including a husband who repeatedly tries and fails to kill and bury his wife and a father hypnotized to believe he is a bird and gets stuck that way as the hypnotist is murdered before he can change him back. Truthfully, I'm kind of growing tired of the intersecting storyline structure but director Gen Sekiguchi pulls it off reasonably well. Besides, there are many other things about this film to love. The film is beautiful to look at with its use of enough vibrant colors as to rival Suzuki's Pistol Opera. This film made me laugh out loud more than I recall any film doing in a while.

Frozen

This british thriller/murder mystery/ghost story received a mixed reaction from the people I spoke to on the way out. The plot revolves around a woman coping with and investigating the disappearance of her sister. She steals a tape from a security camera which lead her into an investigation in which she encounters what may be either supernatural happenings or symptoms of her mental decay from her two year ordeal searching for her sister. I heard commments that it was incoherant and that it was a failed Breaking the Waves imitator. I disagree with my fellow film goers. I found it to be an interesting mystery which intentionally leaves some questions unanswered.

Late Bloomer

Late Bloomer is a pretty original film. This film is the story of the disabled Sumida and the college students who help care for him. Sumida develops an unrequited crush on the female student Nobuko, who begins growing closer with Take, the male student who has been caring for Sumida for some time. This love triangle turns the film in a direction you would not expect, taking it in a surprisingly dark direction. Director Go Shibata was on hand for a Q&A after the screening during which he identified David Lynch as his primary influence and favoriite director. A pleasant surprise from an unpleasant film. The Q&A might have been more enjoyable if the translator didn't have to complain about people asking questions with words he didn't know how to translate.

Izo