Ju-on (The Grudge)

--Reviewed by Lindy Loo

Plotline: A movie about a haunted house and a vengeful spirit. Really. That's all it's about.

Scariness factor: The ghostly-woman character--definitely fricking scary. The noise--scary as well. The rest of the movie--eh.

Gross-Out Factor: There is really nothing vomitous in this movie at all, so those of you with a squeamish stomach can rest easy.

Complaints: This movie was by the creators of Ringu, but it was not *nearly* as good. In fact, I didn't find it much more interesting or freaky than the American version. It was a lot less irritating and Hollywood-slick, but strangely, it still had a bit of a big-blockbustery feel to it that was absent in Ringu. It was not very fast-paced, so I found myself getting fidgety often. Like Ringu, it doesn't try too hard at explaining *why* the hauntings are taking place--this time around though, this is both a good and a bad thing. Good because the American versions always get tiresome in their need to pin down everything so that it makes absolute logical sense, bad in that I had a hard time investing myself in being frightened because, well, I couldn't figure out why the hell I should be caring all that much that the hauntings were taking place... That and the scary parts were so repetitive that after you've run into the first few, you start to feel ho-hum about seeing the main ghosty characters lurching around after people. Oh, and what is it with Japanese filmmakers and their fear of Japanese women with long black hair that hangs inexplicably in front of their face at all times?

High Points: The creepy woman in it is DAMN creepy. Images of her were stuck in my head the rest of the night as I roamed around my dark apartment and tried to fall asleep. And the noise she and the little boy make--f-ed up and spooky, man. Freaks me out just to think about it. Other than that though, not much in the way of scariness.



Overall: I was not too impressed (which was even a bit more disappointing because I had to rack up an overdue fine at the library to be able to watch the damn movie last night)--Ringu is by far the better of the two movies, so if you have to choose between the two, rent that one instead.

Grade: C