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Ju-On "The Grudge" (2003) Our Score: 5/10
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Summary:
Foreplay without Climax |
Ju-On is a movie that simply put, could have been better. A simple case
of massive potential that flopped. Why? Mainly because the script
seemed to suffocate the directing. When left alone to the director's
ingenious, the movie does quite well, which we see evident in the first
30 minutes of the film, which are flawless. But, the scenes to come are
terribly pathetic, and kill the movie outright.
"A Ju-On is a type of curse, a spirit of vengeance that haunts a place
when the spirit has died in the midst of a great rage. Whoever comes
into contact with the Ju-On, will be destroyed by it. Thus we have a
house, and we have various stories of people who come into contact with
the house that contains the Ju-On." Very eloquently said.
The first half hour is spine numbing in the excellent and eloquent way
they build suspense, while accomplishing next to nothing, I thought if
this keeps up I'm gonna die of fright. The problem is, it doesn't, it
degrades into predictable, and tongue and cheek scares.
The music stumbles, the scenes repeat, and very little entertains once
the movie allegedly takes off. The lack of character development leaves
you feeling part of several stories thrown together in disjointed
fashion. Plots that lead to dead ends like the Winchester Mystery House
are effective, but for some reason imagination falls on it's face in
each scene. I do feel the American remake can be better in this
instance, and I don't say that very often at all. This is the first
actually. Some movies cannot be redone, others like Ju-On are great
story-scare potential just dying to be tapped into.
Some of the directing is terrific, but the script kills it, and to be
honest the directing seemed to lose concentration when dealing with
this horrible of a script. Again, we'll just have to see what the
Americans do with it, when they release a remake later this year. It
will be nice to see the original director working in a new environment
which might be exactly what this story deserves.
The simplicity of the welfare characters going about what they think
will be a normal routine is really well played. I especially like when
it clicks in when the girl wakes up in the morning, and the "ghost"
throws her stuff in disarray on the ground, that this is how the place
got so messy to begin with - it wasn't due to neglect but because the
people simply gave up on cleaning up the place since the spirits are
just gonna mess it up again. That was a really great effect, and
unspoken. So, a 5 overall.
