Ju-on is the Japanese original of The Grudge, which is its much more wide-spread American remake. The Grudge has become one of the most well-known horror movies of the 2000's and despite the fact that I was a child when it came out, I quickly became well acquainted with it because of its massive popularity. And for good reason. It is genuinely terrifying. But looking back on it today, it is honestly kind of goofy in its execution and doesn't really work as a story.
What separates the two movies is a trait that is common amongst American remakes: the Japanese version has a lot more subtlety. It doesn't provide a lot of jump-scares, it lingers far longer with suspension and it doesn't really have any flashy effects. These things work to the movie's credit in this case. Ju-on is a collection of short stories in which all of the characters in some way come in contact with a haunted house and are afterwards haunted by its angry ghosts, in the form of a white-faced woman and boy who makes (very infamously) death-rattles when they near their victims. And that's about it. The rest of the plot in these stories surround how the characters deal with the hauntings and how they are ultimately murdered brutally. Which doesn't honestly make a compelling story, but what makes Ju-on work is that it is so scary with so little effort. It's bleak and unrelenting, it's slow and undramatic. I think it's quite incredible - compared to all the CGI monsters and loud jump scares in the world, nothing compares to a woman with a white face and ghoulish eyes.
The best parts of Ju-On are the part where a woman tries to hide from the hauntings of the ghosts in her apartment and turns on the TV and...well, the result is horrifying. This along with the scenes of a school girl trying to hide from the ghosts by hiding in a dark room with the windows covered by papers. What makes these scenes so fantastic is that they really take their time with letting you feel their fear. The scenes are not just the ends to a mean of serving a big scare, but rather letting the suspension and despair be the ends to the means.
Ultimately what Ju-on does best is capture a true reflection of the unforgivingness of death, coming after us, slowly but surely, one by one, taking its revenge on us just for living. If you have the guts, it's not a masterpiece but it really is the experience of a lifetime and a milestone in modern horror.
What separates the two movies is a trait that is common amongst American remakes: the Japanese version has a lot more subtlety. It doesn't provide a lot of jump-scares, it lingers far longer with suspension and it doesn't really have any flashy effects. These things work to the movie's credit in this case. Ju-on is a collection of short stories in which all of the characters in some way come in contact with a haunted house and are afterwards haunted by its angry ghosts, in the form of a white-faced woman and boy who makes (very infamously) death-rattles when they near their victims. And that's about it. The rest of the plot in these stories surround how the characters deal with the hauntings and how they are ultimately murdered brutally. Which doesn't honestly make a compelling story, but what makes Ju-on work is that it is so scary with so little effort. It's bleak and unrelenting, it's slow and undramatic. I think it's quite incredible - compared to all the CGI monsters and loud jump scares in the world, nothing compares to a woman with a white face and ghoulish eyes.
The best parts of Ju-On are the part where a woman tries to hide from the hauntings of the ghosts in her apartment and turns on the TV and...well, the result is horrifying. This along with the scenes of a school girl trying to hide from the ghosts by hiding in a dark room with the windows covered by papers. What makes these scenes so fantastic is that they really take their time with letting you feel their fear. The scenes are not just the ends to a mean of serving a big scare, but rather letting the suspension and despair be the ends to the means.
Ultimately what Ju-on does best is capture a true reflection of the unforgivingness of death, coming after us, slowly but surely, one by one, taking its revenge on us just for living. If you have the guts, it's not a masterpiece but it really is the experience of a lifetime and a milestone in modern horror.