Page 200 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema
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New Terrors, Emerging Trends                            187

                              of viewing in an age of technological mediation. Hence, Marebito’s most
                              visceral and unsettling sequences recall the notorious video-based Guinea
                              Pig films discussed in Chapter Two, as well as Western horror fare, from
                              John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (USA, 1986) – in
                              particular  the  sequence  in  which  Henry  and  his  homicidal  roommate,
                              Otis, watch a slow motion replay of a murder they videotaped – to mock-
                              ‘found-footage’  classics  like  Ruggero  Deodato’s  Cannibal  Holocaust
                              (Italy, 1980) and Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch
                              Project (USA, 1999).
                                     Where  Marebito’s  digital  video  aesthetic  breaks  exciting  new
                              ground,  however,  is  in  its  extension  of  the  conceit  of  the  reproduced
                              image as authenticated  vision, a  trope  deployed  famously,  albeit  far less
                              frequently,  by  Michael  Powell  in  the  aforementioned  Peeping  Tom.
                              Consistently  conflating  Masuoka’s  POV  with  the  image  on  his  digital
                              video  camera’s  LCD  screen  until  the  perspectives  become  not  only
                              interchangeable but indistinguishable, Shimizu posits Masuoka’s POV as
                              a product of technological  mediation. In other  words, Masuoka’s camera
                              becomes  a  prosthetic  eye  that  at  once  enriches  and  circumscribes  his
                              vision.  In  addition,  Shimizu’s  copious  digital  manipulations  during  the
                              film’s  editing  include  the  occasional  dissolution  of  the  film’s  image  via
                              pixilation,  an  effect  that  results  in  an  innovative  disruption  of
                              conventional  viewing  pleasures  through  a  ‘counter-cinematic’
                              foregrounding  of  the  work’s  artifice.  Similarly,  Shimizu  reiterates  this
                              embrace of cinema as a technological construct in his overt use of painted
                              backgrounds  during  one  of  Marebito’s  signature  moments:  Masuoka’s
                              discovery of the Lovecraft-inspired ‘Mountains of Madness’. The scene’s
                              composition  evokes  a  strain  of  heightened  theatricality  in  cinema  that
                              audiences can trace as far back to the late nineteenth century ‘trick films’
                              of  the  magician-turned-special-effects-pioneer,  Georges  Méliès.  This
                              embrace  of  the  fantastic  through  a  reminder  of  cinema’s  inherent  two-
                              dimensionality further obviates the art form’s mendacity.
                                     These  gestures,  taken  collectively,  comprise  merely  one
                              component  of  Shimizu  Takashi’s  larger  exploration,  in Marebito,  of  the
                              horror  film’s  continued  allure.  Indeed,  the  film’s  preoccupation  with the
                              process of variably viewing and interpreting the world around us reveals
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