October 19th: Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)
Nation of Origin: Japan
Ratings:
Justin: 2 out of 5
Kim: 2 1/2 out of 5
Mike: 3 out of 5
Notes:
Honestly, I don’t know what America’s obsession with all things Japanese comes from. Sure they are cute and polite and make neat electronic gadgets and decent automobiles, but I don’t get what made Ju-On and its American remake so popular. Remember in the last review where I said “haunted house” movies are lame because the protagonists always have the option of leaving and never coming back? Well, you’d think Ju-On would be awesome because it removes that intrinsic plot-hole by making the ghosts a kind of communicable disease passable from people who come into contact with the house to the people who come into contact with those people (and they tell two friends, and they two friends, and so on and so on). Because I have not seen Ju-On 2, I am left to assume they filmmakers develop some kind of avian flu face mask that keeps The Grudge from passing.
I get the feeling that these films were way more intense to Japanese audiences who bought into the “vengeful ghost” superstitions, because I don’t really see these ghosts as being that vengeful. The ghosts in Poltergeist were scarier and that was a Spielberg picture! In most of the examples featured in this film, the possession just makes the victim crazy then they get listless and catatonic– which, really, is nothing a stack of manga can’t do.
The general rule of haunted house films is that they are just kind of creepy, not so much scary and this is no excepton. Apart from that really cool gurgling sound and some creepy little kid, there’s not a whole lot going on in Ju-On that will scare you.
