There's an undeniable symmetry with the trend of horror movies coming out of Hollywood, and those being imported from the Far East. And it's not necessarily a good one. It's not hard to understand why American filmmakers get their kicks (and a great big fat wad of money) out of re-making some of Asian cinemas most celebrated hits. In a way it's understandable that such a practice now seems to becoming commonplace these days. Horror films in Hollywood have simply dried up, having come back on themselves since Kevin Williamson resurrected mainstream horror back in 1996.

It was clear that people were calling out to be scared again, and for a few years we were blessed with some truly outstanding and innovative titles from the US - The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense and The Others just three examples of filmmakers attempting to do something a little bit different. And then... nothing. Well, not in terms of quality at least. Suddenly a huge influx of identikit slasher films - the very kind of films that buried the genre in the first place - were being churned out, and people lost interest again.

In stepped the Asians. Using their sprawling and highly intriguing mythology as inspiration, they began to reel out hit after hit after hit. Trouble was, for all the frights these films offered, most films resembled show-reels more than actual features: heavy on action, extremely light on plot. Then what happened? Hideo Nakata happened, that's what, bringing one of the staples of Asian cinema, the old-fashioned ghost story, kicking and screaming into modern day cinema with Ringu. We were then treated to the delights of The Eye, Audition and A Tale Of Two Sisters.

And as great as these films undeniably are the one thing that stopped them from appealing to Western audiences was, strangely, the very thing that made them so unique: the fact that they are bathed in a folklore that not many people outside of their respective countries could fully understand.

So in steps Hollywood, kindly offering to translate and re-imagine these films in a way that not only explains the mythical mumbo jumbo, but also retains the spine-tingling flavour that made them so great in the first place. For a small fee, of course. But so blinded by the dollar signs were the studios, they failed to notice one little thing: just as their own horror films started to do a U-turn on themselves, so too did the work of the Orientals. Suddenly, the ideas had started to dry up. Stories were beginning to take a backseat to shocks. And slap-bang in the middle of this movement came Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on: The Grudge.

Now, that’s not to say that Ju-on is a bad film. It’s anything but. In fact, as far as genuine, cower-behind-the-sofa scare-fests go, it’s possibly the scariest film I’ve ever seen. So scary was it, that by the nerve-jangling finale, Nat (the better half for those not in the know) was practically crying out of fear. Most horror directors pack their films with tension, and slowly unleash the terror as the film progresses. Not so writer-director Shimizu, who goes for the jugular literally from the opening minute and doesn’t let go until the final one. What he sacrifices in order to make room for these scares is anything resembling a coherent plot.

The premise goes something like this: imagine if there was a disease that infected a person the very second they came into contact with it. A disease so powerful that it can kill within a matter of hours. But instead of a virus that attacks your immune system, it’s a virus that causes you to be haunted by a duo of demonic spectres, who will stalk you until your final breath.

The cause of said disease? The brutal actions of a father who murdered his wife Kayako (Takakp Fuji), their six-year-old son Toshio (Yuya Ozeki), the family cat, and finally himself after he discovered her having an affair, their brutal deaths causing them to forever inhabit their abode and infecting anyone who crosses its threshold and everybody they come into contact with. Sounds intriguing? Good, because that’s the nearest to a story you’re going to get throughout the rest of the film.

The film opens its focus on with social worker Rika (Megumi Okina, the closest the film gets to a lead character) visiting the house in question in order to check on the old woman, Sachie (Chikako Isomura) who lives there. After fighting her way through piles of junk, and excrement stained floors, she finds Sachie catatonic on the floor, whispering unintelligibly to herself. Investigating the house further, she is shocked to find a small boy locked in an upstairs cupboard. Not as shocked, one imagines, as returning downstairs to find a ghostly silhouette hovering over the corpse of Sachie.

Great way to start the film, undoubtedly, so how does Shimizu follow it up? Erm... by replaying the exact same scene, only this time by shifting back in time to earlier that day and showing the story of a young couple in the same house. First the wife, Kazumi (Shuri Matsuda) hears a series of unearthly noises and encounters a gruesome, off screen fate. Then the husband, Katsuya (Kanji Tsuda) returns home, hears the same noises and comes face to face with the apparition of Toshio, who not only looks as though he’s been, well, dead for a number of years, but also tends to shriek like a cat when he opens his mouth. Honey, can I get a clean pair of trousers?

Yes, it’s eerie as hell, but to have the same scare thrust upon you not once, not twice but three times within the space of fifteen minutes seems a little too perverse. On a certain level, you have to admire the way Shimizu gets so much mileage out of what is essentially the same gag - a creepy figure glimpsed fleetingly at the edge of the frame prefiguring a climactic, shrieking, full-face confrontation. But that is literally how Ju-on plays out all the way through, an undeveloped story split into numerous chapters that focus on different people, all linked through the thinnest of threads, and their own misfortunes at the hand of the curse.

The problem is, these threads are all over the place, with the film stubbornly refusing to explain at which point in the plot each segment takes place. Playing like a compilation of barely related shock sequences, the narrative is often confusing, largely because Shimizu chooses to demonstrate the cumulative effect of the curse by messing with the chronology and overlapping events. A few hints are dropped here and there, but it could take repeated viewings to know exactly where each vignette slots into the story, which is an unwanted distraction when the film is already setting up its next pant-soiling fright.

Furthermore, it’s not really made clear what the curse actually consists of - some victims are scared to death, some are claimed by a mysterious black smoky mass, and others disappear into thin air. Some people are killed pretty much immediately; others are allowed to carry on living for a matter of days, sometimes years. At best it’s inconsistent. At worst, it feels like the whole thing was made up on the spot.

And try as it might, the final scene ‘revelation’, that lends an ulterior angle on the ghosts, fails to neither give us a proper explanation of events, or offer a suitable conclusion. It just seems to kinda end once Shimizu has run out of ideas.

But you get the impression that Ju-on was never a film that concerned itself too much with exposition. It’s all about frights, and there’s no denying that Shimizu’s script delivers what it intends to do: scare you shitless. Cut from the same cloth as Ringu, the relentlessly efficient frights hit all the familiar pressure points, by preying on natural humans fears and exploiting them. One particular standout moment sees Hitomi (Misaki Ito - the sister of Katsuya -, cowering under her covers and attempting to watch TV after a run-in with the malicious spirits. As she stares on in wide-eyed panic, the picture becoming increasingly distorted until a demonic face replaces that of the happy-clappy reporter who previously adorned it, before her bed starts to develop a peculiar human shaped bump...

And, without wanting to give too much away, I defy anyone to sleep soundly after watching the scene where Rika wakes to find Toshio and Kayako stood by her bed. I assure you that you’ll be checking under your bed every night for a week after this scene. An exaggeration this is not.

So it goes on, with some true hair-raising scares: a trio of zombified schoolgirls stalking the girl who left them for dead; a ghostly shadow staring out at a cop through a CCTV camera; or Rika waking up to find her bed inexplicably surrounded by 20 mewing black cats... chilling but admirably primitive.

Which is not to say that you’ll be guaranteed to jump out of your skin everytime something ominous happens. In fact, some of the stuff here is downright silly: Rika washing her hair in the shower, only to find a ghostly hand resting on the back of her head is a prime example. Plus, the script uses the cheap trick of making a character jump at a ringing telephone far too many times. And an accurate barometer on how nerve-jangling you’l find this film rests solely on how scared you can get at the sight of a little boy in white body paint with a permanently glum expression. Personally, I doubt that there are few things more unnerving than an ashen-faced, black-eyed ghost child who keeps popping up in corners of rooms, under tables, inside cupboards and in one superb sequence, on every single floor of a block flats, glimpsed through the window of an ascending lift.

But if the kid is freaky, then the blood-smeared spirit of Kayako is abso-fucking-lutely terrifying. I’m not kidding, everytime this chick was onscreen I pretty much soiled myself. She doesn’t just stalk her victims, but crawls towards them as they are rooted to the spot in fear, in a manner crossed between Sadako’s emergence from the TV in Ringu, and Regan’s spider walk from The Exorcist, emitting a disturbing croak/gurgle as she approaches. Honey, another pair of clean pants please.

What we’re left with is a film that most people will undeniably enjoy the first time round, but will only grant it a second viewing so that they can work out what the hell is going on. The ragged non-linear structure means that it doesn’t grip like Nakata’s signature film, but for sheer unashamed shrieks Ju-on delivers more individual scares than most of its recent rivals. You’ll be peering at the screen through your fingers most of the time, though once you've been through the finale, you’ll probably think twice about doing that ever again.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age