PopHorror Let's Get Scared
25 years later, the curse still gathers. Takashi Shimizu’s (Marebito 2004) Ju-On series has been a landmark franchise in J-Horror, and is one of few J-Horrors to successfully cross over and enjoy commercial success internationally. Most genre-savvy fans outside of Japan, however, would identify 2002’s Ju-On: The Grudge as where the phenomenon began, as it was a box-office hit that had a successful international run before being directly remade by Shimizu himself for American audiences as The Grudge in 2004.
However, the first film in this franchise was 2000’s Ju-On: The Curse, starting with a very low-budget, and only being released direct-to-video, with Ju-On: The Grudge being a sequel and soft reboot. The film itself is an expansion on Shimizu’s two 1998 short films, Katasumi, and 4444444444, which, are in fact scenes that have been retrofitted to take place during Ju-On: The Curse that we never see in the film itself.
Told through a series of non-linear plotlines, Ju-On: The Curse follows the horrors that befall a series of characters over an indeterminate amount of time after they have set foot in a house that was the scene of a grisly murder of passion. Cartoonist Takeo Saeki (Takashi Matsuyama: Ghost in the Shell 1995) kills his wife Kayako (Takako Fuji: Princess Mononoke 1997) in a blind rage after discovering her crush on the Kobayashi (Yūrei Yanagi: Ring 1998), the teacher of their son, Toshio (Ryôta Koyama: Fireworks 1997), and just like that, the powerful emotion of the act has manifested into an unstoppable curse that guarantees the doom of anyone who enters at the hands of its ghostly victims, spreading and consuming with no end in sight.
Over the course of the film, we see helpless innocents such as Toshio and Kobayashi have to interact with the curse to hopeless ends, as well as new families who move in later, unaware of what they are dealing with.
The film itself, like most of the successors in this franchise, is not heavily plot driven, but act as effective slice-of-life horror moments, and emphasize the moody and gloomy atmosphere of the setting and the situation. This one family’s horrifying tragedy has a ripple effect downstream that seems to challenge everything we know and cherish regarding how our domestic situations are supposed to function, and thus the inescapable nature of the curse becomes clear, as our blissful, suburban attitudes are far more fragile than we believe. Additionally, as the curse spreads, the question arises of just how systemic these problems in domestic life are, and just how much of an overhauling is necessary of what we consider ‘family’ and ‘home.’
Although later films in the franchise have improved on the conceit, the low budget minimalist feel of Ju-On: The Curse is still very effective and disturbing. Kayako’s stair-crawl here is by far the most chilling rendition of the scene, shown in a pale, twilit fashion that takes its time, and showcases Takako Fuji’s menacing and nightmarish expressions as a spirit in distress and thirsting for revenge. A few of the plotlines with successive families in the house have their hit or miss moments, due to poor performances, poor special effects, or both, but this film also prominently features casual, Japanese spiritualist elements in a way future films do not.
Kyoko (Yūko Daike: Murder on D Street 1998), the sister of a realtor (Makoto Ashikawa: Fireworks 1997), is particularly aware of the presence in the house, and even takes measures to ensure her brother prepares and dresses it in a fashion safe for future tenants. It ultimately results in failure, as the curse is still too powerful and too evil to be overcome by a well-meaning clairvoyant, but it is nice to see this kind of cultural sensibility as it pertains to the spiritual in a foreign horror film.
Ju-On: The Curse deserves more attention as it is the first film in the franchise, yet bafflingly is more obscure than its more commercially successful following installments. Now is the time to revisit the house in Nerima, Tokyo and give it the appreciation it deserves.
