An underground city holds deep fear

“Marebito: The Stranger From Afar” is the latest picture from cult horror director Takashi Shimizu, best known for “The Grudge.” “Marebito,” though, is provocative rather than scary, and it’s made with visual flair.

Shinya Tsukamoto stars as Masuoka, an ordinary-looking freelance Tokyo news cameraman in early middle age whose voyeuristic tendencies have led him to become obsessed with the need to understand fear. Returning home on the subway from a documentary TV shoot, he comes upon an older man, Furoki (Kazuhiro Nakahara), who suddenly stabs himself in the eye, presumably fatally. Masuoka manages to film the entire incident and, in his cluttered, equipment-filled apartment, studies the footage endlessly, coming to the conclusion that Furoki saw something truly terrorizing the moment he stabbed himself.

Masuoka decides to trace the path of Furoki’s gaze, which takes him back to the subway and a spiral staircase that leads deep below surface streets and World War II air raid shelters into ancient tunnels, where he is eventually greeted by Furoki, who may or may not be a ghost. Furoki escorts him to a vast underground world where in a subterranean forest, which seems flooded by daylight, he discovers a naked, pretty young woman (Tomomi Miyashita) chained at her ankle to a wall in a shallow cavern. Masuoka rescues her and takes her to his apartment -- never mind that she seems to exist exclusively on blood, for which she has a ravenous appetite.

Chiaki Konaka’s screenplay is inspired by a story written by Richard Shaver that was published in Amazing Stories magazine in the 1940s. Far from unique in his belief that cities around the world have subterranean communities inhabited by strange beings, Shaver asserted that these caverns were built by aliens from another galaxy who were fleeing the sun’s radiation and whose offspring degenerated into evil dwarfs or Deros -- “detrimental robots” -- who kidnap surface-dwelling humans for sustenance and have “ray” machines that can project tormenting thoughts and voices into human minds.

Shimizu doesn’t show any such machinery, but Masuoka does grow increasingly distraught, especially in keeping the young woman supplied with blood. “Marebito” is no conventional vampire movie but a speculation into the notion that ancient people could sense alien beings in their midst.

In this view, the experience of terror can reveal a flash of long-forgotten human knowledge. As Masuoka seems to be driven into escalating madness one thing seems certain: He can’t rest until he has experienced profound fear himself.

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‘Marebito: The Stranger From Afar’

MPAA rating: R for strong bloody violence, some nudity

Times guidelines: Inappropriate for children

A Tartan Films release of a Euro Space Inc. production. Director Takashi Shimizu. Producers Kenzo Horikoshi, Mikihiko Hirata, Yoichiro Onishi, Atsuko Ohno. Screenplay Chiaki Konaka. Cinematographer Tsukasa Tanabe. Editor Masahiro Ugajin. Music Toshiyuki Takine. Costumes Kuniko Hojo. Production designer Atsuo Hirai. In Japanese with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.

Exclusively at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 281-8223.