Ju-on: The Curse

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Poe M Jun 14, 2018 After watching this movie I felt that it was an okay movie. It just feels kinda weird. I do give it some chances as it was back when Ju On was still an unknown franchise rather than the cult hit it is today. This movie shaped the entire Ju On franchise. This movie has some scary moments but it has a lack of continuity and constant shift between characters. To be honest this movie was originally gonna get 3 stars but this became the first movie I actually jumped from fear while watching so thats 1 star up. See more

Anakin S Nov 14, 2017 It's a really weird film to go into, that's heavily rooted in Shinto lore, which reading a lot of Pro-Critics review aren't familiar with and as such don't understand the movie. A lot of the Japanese horror movies I've seen are like Ju-On The Curse Part 1, where it's not horror by western standards, and is more of a drama. The movie slowly reveals itself throughout each tenants' story, and it does so since each tenant discovers a different piece of the origin of the ghost and why she's haunting the place. This is a super, almost cliched, common premise in Japanese horror. Revenge ghosts. Another one is Regret ghosts. I'm not an expert on this part of Japanese culture, but I think they're similar but not the same. Regret ghost usually dies in the middle of doing something and haunts the place trying to complete its task before being able to move on. Revenge ghost is there to get the vengeance it believes is owed to it, or closure. Whether its letting its story be told. Which is what's happening in this movie, so it's more of a sad movie than a scary movie. You're supposed to sympathise with the ghost. Yes, it's very weird, but Ringu is a lot like it too. So to explain why men get paralyzed in her presence, that's just part of that demonology, that you the JAPANESE audience are supposed to walk into the theatre knowing about. Like how duck turtles with a monk style balding pattern love to lure little children by the edges of bodies of water and then drown them. So to a western audience it doesn't make sense, but to a Japanese audience it does, whether or not you still find it scary is up to you. I liked this movie, it has 1 great jump scare and that's really it. Oh and revenge ghosts kill humans one to act as either a toll to allow them to move on and have the person they killed take their spot, or two get fed up with the humans after realising they won't help them. This hair demon has a name to it, they all do, and the hair demon has more power of men than women, that's part of the lore you're supposed to come into the movie already knowing. That's the problem with a lot of these supernatural Japanese and Oriental films, they're made specifically for their audience and assume their audience are coming into it with a general understanding of the mechanics. I thought the story was nice, and it was a good movie, again, horror isn't the right genre for it. Maybe drama would be better. See more

Leia W Jun 18, 2017 Lack of sense, a story that it came to nothing, It is a lousy attempt to give meaning to this. It is a terrible attempt to create horror that only causes boredom and at the same time, laughter. Totally absurd and incoherent. In addition, it is highly overrated and many defend it by saying that one needs to be patient and that terror does not come in jumpscares or in modern films. It is like saying that in comedy doesn't necessarily have to cause laughter to be comedy, or that in drama doesn't need to impact or be serious to be drama. Takashi Shimizu fails in this one, and in the American version. See more

Kylo P Jan 9, 2017 Most of the reviewers here don't seem to realize that this movie came before the Japanese film version (which is much less cohesive, plot wise FYI) Originally released on Japanese television, this film comprises of a series of vignettes (just like Tarantino films) told from the perspective of the character listed on the opening screen. The ultimate purpose of this is the slow unfolding of a story of a terrifying tragedy. What we see from each vignette is how much each character understands about this tragedy and the repercussions it brings to bear upon their own lives. Done this way, we are permitted to experience the events firsthand. Thus, there are no "safe spaces" from the growing sense of unease that builds throughout the film. Instead, we are made active participants in each event. The low-key acting and "everyman" quality of each character is intentional and makes them easier to identify with. Unlike many American horror films, this one places us directly in the shoes of each character experiencing the events firsthand. It does not rely on either jump scares or cheap tricks. For some audiences, this lack is so unfamiliar that they find the entirety confusing. This is a bit like one who has become accustomed to eating McDonalds burgers suddenly being given an actual steak. That said, the horror presented by this film is more of a creeping, slowly building sense of dread that eventually culminates in a terrifying scene (copied countless times by the American remakes to rather flat effect). What this film requires of its audience is patience and discerning. Those looking for yet another "splatter film" or "jump scare fest" with a plot ridden with clichés and a comforting ending (the exorcist/psychic/priest shows up and all is well again) will be disappointed. This film does not patronize or comfort. It displays the true nature of horror: a terrible, unrelenting feeling of disquiet. A sense that something unimaginable has happened and now, things can never be made "right" again - thus the "curse". This is how hauntings are supposed to work. In the end, it's not simply about the "ghost" or even the house in which the aforementioned resides. It's about the horror of an event that can never be fully erased. Its also about being made forcibly aware of how easily such an event could have happened to us. Helplessness and tragedy are the underlying emotions lurking just beneath the shattering horror we feel at seeing what has happened. They are drawn out so as to linger long after the credits have disappeared. In seeing what has happened, we too, in the end, are "cursed". See more

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Ju-on: The Curse

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