JU-ON: THE GRUDGE
Holy freaky white-faced boy batman! This is one scary-ass movie. I’m just catching up with this whole JU-ON thing and, I have to say, this is the SCARIEST goddam film I’ve seen in memory.
Takashi Shimizu has apparently made this same movie THREE TIMES. First it was a straight-to-video really, really low budget version in 2000 (and a sequel which followed), then this version I watched today which is a little-bit-higher-budget version from 2003, then last year he directed an American re-make starring Sarah Michelle Gellar with a significantly higher budget of $10 million, produced by Sam Raimi.
Shimizu summarizes the story in this interview as:
It’s a story about ghosts who kill. Once they are killed, their victims become ghosts as well and repeat the cycle.
I liken this movie to some of the work of David Lynch. The plot itself is less important than the pure emotive response the movie creates in the audience. There are pretty much ZERO special effects. The horror is hidden from the eyes of the audience for much of the film, all you see is the expression on the faces of those who DO see it. What makes this film scary as hell is the use of sound effects. You hear stuff you don’t see. You see stuff you don’t hear. You see stuff you ain’t SUPPOSED to see in real life. It’s all peripheral vision horror. You get a glimpe of something, and that’s a thousand times scarier than seeing something face on. The film builds up a tension until, in the climactic scenes, you see the source of the horror, and even though it’s just a woman with white face paint on, cralwing down some stairs, I had goosebumps break out all over my body (and I was pretty much in that state right through the film).
I started watching this film today at lunchtime while working out on my crosstrainer. At one point, a series of quick footsteps are heard running behind the main character. Because of where my crosstrainer is positioned in my surround-sound, it sounded like the footsteps were behind ME. I jumped off the crosstrainer with fright. I swear to god.
Don’t watch it alone in the dark.
July 18th, 2005 at 1:42 pm
Hey Cam, If you’d like some similar scares you might like to check out a fun little Korean horror, The Eye (2002). It has a similar premise to The Sixth Sense (in that the main character can see ghosts) but it’s nothing like it.
Good value!
July 18th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Thanks Chris, I’ll keep an eye out for it. :-)
July 21st, 2005 at 12:02 am
Ah, wit. Nice one!
I wish to add an addendum. The last sentence of your entry above reads:
“Don’t watch it alone in the dark.”
I wish to modify this to:
“Don’t watch Alone in the Dark.”
Just… don’t.