Ju-on: The Grudge
Takashi Shimizu, 2002
An assortment of people with loosely interrelated lives fall victim to a curse that was left behind by a violent murder.
Ju-on: The Grudge was not the first of the modern cycle of Japanese ghost stories, but it seems to be as close to an archetypal example of the genre as anything I've seen. You've got your slow-moving, long-haired female ghost, you've got your curse that must be investigated, you've got your unnerving intrusions of the supernatural on to a distinctly modern world, your creepy little boy, etc. etc.
One thing that does stand out about this movie, though, is its structure. Many of the reviews I've come across have complained about this, but I loved it. The movie is structured almost as a series of vignettes, each focusing on a different victim of the curse. They're all interrelated somehow, with characters from one story often making brief appearances in other stories, and one story will sometimes (but not always) pick up where another left off. They're also shown out of chronological order. I found that this gave the whole thing a sort of archeological feel, which I suppose mirrors the characters' investigation into the cursed house. It also prevented any of the characters from developing all that much, but the curse itself is really the main character anyway.
Ultimately, though, there's really nothing to it beyond the experience itself, and some of the J-horror tropes are getting a little bit old, so I can't praise it too highly. Still, if you're just looking for a spooky thrill, you could do a lot worse.
7/10
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