(2000)
Dir - Takashi Shimizu
Overall: GOOD
The first in about a seven-hundred deep series of Ju-On/Grudge properties, Takashi Shimizu's Ju-On: The Curse, (Juon), sets the template and delivers some chilling spookiness despite its SOV aesthetic. Followed by Ju-On: The Curse 2 which was released the same year and spent nearly half of its running time simply re-telling the same events of this movie, Shimizu establishes the haunted Saeki home, its two pale/crackling/cat-meowing ghosts, and the disjointed narrative gimmick. Told in six, out of sequence segments, the pacing lags behind in a few spots as the movie lingers in its eerie tone, but the still atmosphere only enhances the supernatural elements which helped solidify certain J-horror motifs that have flourished ever since. Along with Hideo Nakata's comparatively more polished Ringu adaptation, this was the film to contemporize the age-old relentless vengeful spirit, setting it at a modern, unassuming home that can attach itself to and terrorize anyone who comes in contact with it.
(2000)
Dir - Takashi Shimizu
Overall: MEH
As a stand-alone viewing experience, Ju-on: The Curse 2, (Ju-on 2), is a missed opportunity as the first thirty minutes are taken right out of its predecessor from the same year. That leaves only about forty-odd minutes of singular material here which serves merely as a continuation of the first film since it is identical in structure and its SOV presentation. Assuming that director Takashi Shimizu maybe had too much footage to make an agreeably-lengthed debut, (or that the production personnel thought that they could maximize profits by releasing two movies instead of one), the resulting companion piece here may be half pointless if still adequate at delivering the lo-fi chills. The new chapters do not do anything to deepen the mythos, but they do provide a handful of spooky moments such as a ghost popping out from under a guy's chair, several of them banging on the windows of a school, one projected onto a ceiling, and a women pummeling her nagging husband with a frying pan out of nowhere, (a gag that Jennifer Beals would get to revisit in Shimizu's 2006 American remake The Grudge 2).
(2002)
Dir - Takashi Shimizu
Overall: MEH
While the initial entry into the Ju-On series Ju-On: The Curse was a fun, low-budget, shot-on-digital-video experiment with an interesting, out-of-sequence presentation that manged to surpass its technical and narrative limitations with a consistently eerie mood, the third installment in as many years Ju-on: The Grudge sees writer/director Takashi Shimizu just recycling the exact same structure with little if anything new added to the proceedings. Everyone we meet is doomed and the death rattle-croaking, bent over, wide-eyed and pale Saeki specters still primarily hang out in the same attic and climb down the same stet of stairs on all fours while people collapse and wait for them to easily catch up. The movie is so identical to the proceeding ones as to qualify as a remake, giving it an air of pointlessness that is unfortunate. On the other hand though, this is the first in the series to benefit visually from an actual budget, so for anyone who is taken out of the proceedings of the first two installments due to both of them being SOV movies, this is a better place to start.
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