Marui video or 8 MM, Another found footage movie is coming to big screen. This subgenre of horror has its own fans. Since being pioneered by Ruggero Deodato through his brutal gore film Cannibal Holocaust in 1980, the found footage genre has exploded since the success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999.
Actually, there are many more found footage films besides the ones mentioned above, it’s just that we will focus on films that have recently grabbed attention. Previously on the big screen there was a Korean film, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum in 2018, followed by a Thai film, The Medium in 2021, then Marui Video on April 10, 2023.
Not purely found footage.
Marui Video is not your typical movie like The Blair Witch Project, which is entirely raw material with shaky shots, here we see a combination of found footage and mockumentary. This combination makes Marui Video seem like a real investigation with interviews with several sources conducted by the female journalist, linked to the fundamental question, “who are the people in the video?” We are made to believe that this movie is a non-fiction work deliberately made by Producer Kim. This style is already common, and it is certainly interesting to see how far the mystery has been uncovered from the producer’s investigation.
The mystery comes with a supernatural twist.
One obvious thing that makes this movie interesting is the appearance of a mysterious shadow in a black hat in the bedroom mirror during the murder. The shadow feels impossible, because the angle is very narrow, making the shadow not a person! It is this figure that Producer Kim and his team are trying to uncover. They interviewed the owner of the inn, people around the crime scene and also found out who the murdered woman was. The deeper they look for facts, the more shocking findings lead Producer Kim and his team to risk their lives.
Slow flow and minimal jumpscares.
From the first minute, Marui Video focuses on the search for the forbidden video. Like most investigations, the movie is packaged like a documentary video, slow with ups and downs. Some interesting things emerge but soon drop again. This is constant, until the movie starts to rise in tension in the last 25 minutes, where everything starts to connect and reaches its climax in the last 10 minutes. There are no jumpscares, and they are minimal for a movie like this. Even so, the horror of this movie is enough to give us goosebumps seeing some of the scenes.
Conclusion:
As a found footage horror film, Marui Video manages to deliver a supernatural murder mystery that, despite the lack of jumpscares, is quite chilling. The interesting combination of mockumentary and found footage provides an option for those who don’t like the excessive use of shaky handhelds in their shots. Marui Video may not be as good as similar genre films, but the mystery can keep our attention on the movie, even if it’s not easy to follow for the unfamiliar.
