Ju-On: The Grudge

Shimizu Takashi’s Ju-On: The Grudge has a long back story, contained in two straight-to-video films that Shimizu directed in 1999. Acquaintance with the videos, however, is not necessary to understanding the film, which is more like a reel through a house - or rather a world - of horror than an entertainment with a beginning, middle and end. Like many films that aspire to edge nowadays, The Grudge scrambles its chronology, but once you are in its grip the plot puzzlers matter less than the atmosphere of impeding doom. It’s like being caught in a bad dream, with Evil gaining and no way out - save a death too horrible to endure. Shimizu cannot completely mask the low-budget look of his production, but he makes a virtue of necessity by emphasizing the everydayness of his Ghost World, which looks very much like our own, especially if you only get around to cleaning the house once every five years. The house where most of the film’s action takes place is a moldy firetrap that sits apart from its neighbors in a jungle of weeds. It’s first visitor is Rika (Okina Megumi), a “home helper” come to care for the bedridden woman who is the owner’s mother. When she arrives, she finds the old girl in a state of shock, unable to utter a word. Hearing rustling on the second floor, Rika investigates and, in the children’s room, sees something that frightens the living wits out of her. Backtrack a few days, when the old woman’s son Katsuya (Tsuda Kanji) returns home to discover his wife Kazumi (Matsuda Risa) prostrated and speechless. Knowing all too well that strange things have been happening ever since they moved into this place he becomes determined to learns why. What he finds, though, is beyond all reason - and unhinges his. Every good horror movie has a girl with a good scream - and The Grudge has several, particularly Okina Megumi as Rika. Though she may not have the decibels of Naomi Watts in The Ring (or whoever dubbed those decibels), Okina has the right desperate look, of someone who can’t believe this is happening to her - and becomes determined to stop it. Does she succeed? Does the screaming stop? Yours will, of course, when the lights go up.