It is usually quite exciting when a new installment of your favourite horror films come out, but with Ju-On/The Grudge, knowing what to expect has become all too predictable. Takashi Shimizu's premise about a Japanese suburban house being haunted by its dead residents who consume all those who step in it has run out of steam and feels more dead than the iconic ghosts in the movie. While each previous installment of the series followed the same basic plot, each one did something unique with the characters.
Heck, the films White Ghost/Black Ghost were pretty good, showing what might happen with similar but different "grudges" that are unconnected to Kayako and Toshio. However, it seems Ju-On is taking a page out of Halloween's book - ditching any potential of being original with each new film and instead retracing its steps with a film reboot/extremely loose sequel. How original. And while Sadako 3D served as a flawed reintroduction to Ringu, Ju-On: The Beginning of the End is a drab, cheap, boring dull-fest that is more absurd and hilarious than scary.
The film takes several plots from previous Ju-On films and reworks them into the traditional, non-linear storyline we've come to know. A teacher visits the Saeki house after Toshio is absent from school, and a group of school girls venture into the house as part of a dare. As expected, the creepy and kooky Saeki family pay the intruders a visit and one by one, after some cheesy poltergeist activity, kill them off screen or in gory fashion.
As I said a lot of stuff from the past films are included - the creepy diary from the fourth film, the broken off jaw from the first, a group of girls going into the house and being driven crazy, identical death, etc. The acting is very sub-par and none of the characters develop beyond being anything more than idiots who are to be killed off. There is plenty of cheese in the film and downright hilarious moments that are meant to be scary. Cardboard boxes shudder and jump around, Toshio must've met Gozer at some point as one girl is dragged into a fridge to her doom, and one girl encounters her dead friends on the subway, one of whom has become a giant for some reason.
The differences in the mythos are extensive - the Saekis are now the Yanagas, Toshio is Takeo's biological son and implied in Kayako's diary to be something possibly supernatural, the house is completely different, and the sympathetic tragedy that I found with the ghosts has now completely gone to the sheer ridiculousness and sub-par acting of the cast. And who's idea was it to have Takeo nuke the cat in the microwave! Surprisingly, even the traditional "Kayako crawls down the stairs" scene is missing too.
The whole production of Ju-On: The Beginning of the End feels extremely cheap and lacks any creative thought or introduces new ideas beyond a clunky reboot. Very poor.
Heck, the films White Ghost/Black Ghost were pretty good, showing what might happen with similar but different "grudges" that are unconnected to Kayako and Toshio. However, it seems Ju-On is taking a page out of Halloween's book - ditching any potential of being original with each new film and instead retracing its steps with a film reboot/extremely loose sequel. How original. And while Sadako 3D served as a flawed reintroduction to Ringu, Ju-On: The Beginning of the End is a drab, cheap, boring dull-fest that is more absurd and hilarious than scary.
The film takes several plots from previous Ju-On films and reworks them into the traditional, non-linear storyline we've come to know. A teacher visits the Saeki house after Toshio is absent from school, and a group of school girls venture into the house as part of a dare. As expected, the creepy and kooky Saeki family pay the intruders a visit and one by one, after some cheesy poltergeist activity, kill them off screen or in gory fashion.
As I said a lot of stuff from the past films are included - the creepy diary from the fourth film, the broken off jaw from the first, a group of girls going into the house and being driven crazy, identical death, etc. The acting is very sub-par and none of the characters develop beyond being anything more than idiots who are to be killed off. There is plenty of cheese in the film and downright hilarious moments that are meant to be scary. Cardboard boxes shudder and jump around, Toshio must've met Gozer at some point as one girl is dragged into a fridge to her doom, and one girl encounters her dead friends on the subway, one of whom has become a giant for some reason.
The differences in the mythos are extensive - the Saekis are now the Yanagas, Toshio is Takeo's biological son and implied in Kayako's diary to be something possibly supernatural, the house is completely different, and the sympathetic tragedy that I found with the ghosts has now completely gone to the sheer ridiculousness and sub-par acting of the cast. And who's idea was it to have Takeo nuke the cat in the microwave! Surprisingly, even the traditional "Kayako crawls down the stairs" scene is missing too.
The whole production of Ju-On: The Beginning of the End feels extremely cheap and lacks any creative thought or introduces new ideas beyond a clunky reboot. Very poor.