Ju-On: The Grudge

Directed by Takashi Shimizu

Viewed on Vudu

 

Summary: A horrible crime leaves a house burdened by a curse. More and more people get involved, leading to a disastrous outcome for everyone involved, including the viewer.

 

I have a confession to make. There are a ton of classic horror movies that I have yet to see. I do hope to change that soon, that is what most of Spooktober will be dedicated to, but as it stands there are tons of horror movies with killer reputations that for one reason or another I just never got around to seeing. I can’t say for sure where this movie falls on the ‘classic’ meter but Japanese horror has been revered by horror film nerds for some time now so I figured this was as good a place as any to start checking off boxes. There will definitely be more Asian horror films discussed here in the coming weeks so let’s kick that off by talking about one of the first movies to get an American remake, Ju-On: The Grudge.

Ju-On’s story centers on a house that is held in the grip of a curse caused by horrific murders that took place there not too long ago. That’s just the background though because the main narrative, told in a non-linear fashion, focuses on people who have had contact with the house, either personally or through their connection to someone else who experienced it. After this contact, these people begin seeing threatening ghastly apparitions that disrupt their lives and torment them. It’s a pretty basic plot, we have half a dozen or so vignettes about how different people have been affected by this curse, from the people who recently moved in there to the social workers and police who become involved with all the strange happenings in this area. Nothing too complicated here but I kind of like that, the story is much more character driven than story driven and the plot doesn’t get overly complicated to draw your attention away from what propels the movie.

 

This is all excellent in theory, but the execution of these ideas leaves something to be desired, mainly in the character department. None of the people that we meet really stuck out as especially interesting, which is a big problem when your narrative is as simple as the one we have here. On top of that there is a huge problem with where the horror comes from in this horror movie. The horror comes from these ghastly apparitions that sometimes appear to scare/harm people and while this sounds scary, and should be scary, it never connected with me on any kind of emotional level. I was never afraid of anything or for any of these characters, probably because there never seemed to be any stakes or any possible way for anyone to avoid being killed by this curse (that isn’t really a spoiler because the first curse murder happens early on). Everything just seems so inevitable and that doesn’t register as fear for me, it feels much more tragic than anything.  

 

That is what really frustrated me about the movie, I didn’t get the main plot line but there were a lot of other details that I enjoyed. There is some genuinely creepy imagery in this film but I enjoy almost all of it much more out of context than I do in context of the story. Part of me not being able to enjoy it in context is that whenever I watch a movie like this about some sort of haunted location that kills people or drives them insane, I can never stop thinking about the logic of how curses work in these worlds. It may be that I’m just misunderstanding how these curses are supposed to work but I cannot stop thinking how many cursed locations there would be not just in Japan but around the world if anytime someone was murdered in a horrific way, which seems a bit redundant because murder is pretty horrific by definition, and what the world’s reactions to this would be. We already have paranormal investigators who poke around all sorts of supposedly haunted locales and they would probably put the pieces together very quickly if there was one building where everyone who lived there after a brutal murder mysteriously died or just disappeared, hell people who just WALK IN can get affected by it! Again, these aren’t really critiques of the movie, they’re just me explaining why I didn’t get too much out of this curse plot.

 

The pacing doesn’t help either, not having an interesting plot or characters coupled with the vignette style of storytelling makes the film move at a glacial pace. It’s such a shame because the acting is okay and there are some good shots, especially when the police are investigating the house. In that vignette in particular care was taken to make sure that the house looked significantly different than it did in the other vignettes, and I appreciate the effort to keep things visually interesting. The visuals are all that really kept me invested in what was happening, especially as the movie gets further along and the film just gets emptier and darker. This wasn’t anywhere near enough to save the movie for me, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

Also I feel I should admit that maybe there is a lot of subtle characterization and story detail that I just don’t see because this movie was made for an audience that I am not part of. It is always interesting to watch foreign films to see what does and doesn’t translate well for international audiences and that goes double for horror, which employs so much culturally specific imagery and ideas. I also don’t know how much I missed by not seeing the previous two movies in this series, going into it I thought this was an original film and I was surprised to learn it is actually the third movie in the Ju-On series. Maybe in Japan this is a gripping and terrifying tale but unfortunately I am not Japanese. Some good shots and imagery aside, I didn’t get much out of Ju-On: the Grudge and would only recommend it if you’re really into J-Horror.