Ju-On: The Grudge

Ju-On: The Grudge, which follows several characters as they’re haunted by a woman and child, admittedly contains a number of distinctive, almost iconic images (eg a character feels another hand on their head during a shower), and yet filmmaker Takashi Shimizu generally proves unable to sustain the viewer’s interest for more than a few minutes at a time – with the movie’s disjointed, time-shifting narrative preventing one from wholeheartedly embracing the material or characters. This is despite an ongoing emphasis on genuinely creepy images and interludes (eg a character on an elevator passes floor after floor of the same spooky little kid), and it’s clear, too, that Ju-On: The Grudge does improve slightly as time progresses and the various pieces begin to fall into place – although the almost total lack of character development results in a hands-off feel that persists even through the film’s stronger stretches. The big revelations of the third act are consequently unable to make the impact that Shimizu is obviously striving for, with the head-scratching final shot ultimately confirming Ju-On: The Grudge‘s place as a mostly ineffective chiller that could’ve worked as a 10 minute short (ie this thing has no business running over an hour and a half).

** out of ****