Ju-on (The Grudge)...2000...R...70 minutes...starring Ryota Koyama, Takako Fuji, Yurei Yanagi, and Chiaki Kuriyama...written and directed by Takashi Shimizu
A teacher goes checking into the home of one of his students, and gets drawn in to the cycle of death and revenge that has played out there. The movie is segmented, following different people whose lives intersect with the victims of a horrible crime and the house where it happened. This movie has spawned an American crossover as well as at least one sequel that I know of, and is one of the movies that has introduced many people here in the States to Japanese horror.
Now, I have said before that if I had to be caught in a horror movie, I would pray that it was an American movie, because then at least I'd have a slim chance of surviving. Ju-On was the movie that spawned this statement. We know it as "The Grudge", but personally I would translate it as "Seething Hatred Of All Life From Beyond The Grave" for accuracy's sake...mostly because if you're unlucky enough to get caught in the movie's house (a true Killer Pad), you're dead. No ifs, ands, or buts; you're just frakkin' dead. And if you know someone who's been in the house, your chances for escaping alive aren't good either.
What makes this movie work, at least from my very American point of view, is that it's creepy in ways that we're not used to on this side of the Pacific. Kids making cat noises while people aren't looking, long haired female corpses crawling downstairs while making croaking sounds...just plain eerie. (Between The Ring and this movie, I have to wonder if the female ghost with the hair over the face isn't just a Japanese cultural standard. Remember, don't look them in the eye if you can at all help it.)Now, admittedly, there's some moments where I wondered what was up...why in the world is a tutor terrified of a perfectly cute black cat? Still, at least with more familiar American movies, I feel like I know the "rules" of how supernatural critters operate. Well, throw the rulebook out here...and that's what makes this movie supremely unnerving.
This movie really isn't all that gory...and the effects needed are minimal for this movie, so it's not laden with a lot of things to distract from what's happening. Mostly. There's a sequence with a schoolgirl returning home that may be a bit rough for people not used to horror effects. (Trust me, the Japanese aren't shy about gore, though. We'll talk about a charming little cinematic piece called Audition later.) I'm fond of the segmented story style when it's done well, and it is here, so I give Ju-On 4 bad-tasting sake bottles out of 5.
13 days until Halloween. I hope everyone has a scary, but ultimately safe and fun, time.
Yes, there most definitely is a traditional Japanese ghost genre. It features heavily in alot of Asian horror. They are called "kaidan" stories and they depict traditional Japanese superstitions. There is also a Chinese counterpart called liaozhai. Popular kaidan themes include ghosts, revenge, vengeance, karma, wrath, and regaining power. Water is an important symbol of the path to the underworld, which is really played up in Dark Water.
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