6. Marebito
Year: 2004
Country: Japan
Director: Takashi Shimizu Shot by Shimizu in a matter of days between filming for two entries in his more famous horror franchise - Ju-On: The Grudge 2 and the first American installment The Grudge - Marebito is an almost unclassifiable experience. It's totally, vastly different from his famous money-making series in the best way possible. The film follows a freelance cameraman who films a man's suicide in a subway station and becomes obsessed with the nature of fear and discovering what it is that drove the man to kill himself. He ventures beneath Tokyo's subway tunnels and discovers a whole other world, bringing back a starving humanoid girl he finds in chains. This decision drives our protagonist deeper and deeper into his dark and insane obsessions as he struggles to keep her alive. Teeming with references to classic literature and urban legends, Marebito is every bit as insane as its main character. It's never entirely clear exactly what is going on, even at the end - multiple and equally valid possibilities are presented. But it doesn't matter, because despite its microscopic budget and rushed nature, Marebito is positively chilling and deeply disturbing. Out of all the movies listed here, this is the one that's stuck with me the most - and the only one that still gives me chills just thinking about it.