Nearsighted Reviews: Ju-On (The Grudge)
by Adam Goldstein
The Metropolitan
Haunted houses and eerie homesteads have come in a variety of shapes and sizes on the silver screen: from the creepy, sprawling estate of the "House" series to the lone, stark motel on a hill that Norman Bates shared his desiccated mother.
The Japanese film "Ju-On", translated roughly as "The Grudge", adds an unexpected twist to the horror staple, imbuing an apparently ordinary Japanese home with a gory history and a gang of ghouls bent on exacting revenge from any hapless inhabitant who dares to enter. As with "The Ring," Hollywood is hoping to cash in on the remake.
Japanese director Takashi Shimizu's complex and, at times, confusing tale of a resonant spiritual ill-will that passes through an unassuming residence delivers some genuinely creepy and startling moments. Much of the confusion arises from the erratic chronology of the film that veers from one generation to the next, one set of the house's inhabitants to another in rapid succession. Although the plot's twists and turns are difficult to follow completely, Shimizu provides genuinely scary moments with a minimum effort, displaying a genius for the resonant power of understated effects. For example, one of the star ghosts of the story is an ashen faced, wiry child who pops up at the most unexpected and disturbing moments. He appears suddenly during some of the most unsettling moments of the film, gazing at unsuspecting victims from a stairwell, under a table, and even beneath the sheets. It is in these moments that the film hits its mark, capitalizing on the audience's unsuspecting calm to deliver the shriek, the jump, the cringe, the spilled popcorn. And that's what going to horror movies is all about.
Ian Neligh
Takashi Shimizu wrote and directed the wonderfully dark but ultimately confusing "Ju-On" as well as the notorious "Ringu." It's no wonder American directors are remaking Shimizu's movies, because unlike recent Hollywood fair, Shimizu has fantastic scares and original ideas. Not every punch set-up in this movie connects, but several catch you unaware leaving you with a black eye and a cauliflowered ear.
The story follows a non-linear plot that answers questions while creating far more in the mind-boggling process.
I believe what makes this movie scary- while having almost painfully subdued special effects-is Shimizu's brilliant attention to the stillness of the natural world.
Places take on the underlying unease of the psyche, while making you feel alone in a room even though someone is sitting in the chair with you. Shimizu plays with "the lights are on but nobody's home" game, nicely illustrated in one scene by an old man in assisted-living playing peek-a-boo with a boy who's not there, or a home-care provider who looks for the source of movement in an empty house while a grandmother stares off into oblivion at a wall in the living room.
It's interesting to imagine Sam Rami, creator of the crazy camera angled-chainsaw-wielding-blood-splattered "Evil Dead" series remaking this Japanese film, starring an almost forgotten Sarah Michelle Gellar. It's reported that Rami called the original the most frightening movie he's ever seen.
I don't know about that, but it is mighty creepy and that's more than you can say for most. "Ju-On," showing at Starz Sept. 3-9. |
