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Ju-on: The Grudge Critical Reception

Hello all and welcome back to my blog for my final post about Japanese horror films. Today I will be writing about the film, Ju-on: The Grudge (2002), directed by Takashi Shimizu who has created a handful of movies for the Japanese horror genre. Japanese horror, since its rise in the late 1990s, has always been credited for the way it’s manipulated psychological horror and subtle terror through the sound, colors, and supernatural elements that have been a staple of this genre. Ju-on: The Grudge is no exception to that fact as it follows all the staples we have been seeing and uses certain techniques to create that psychological horror we all love with multiple different storylines. In this blog I will be talking about how critics and scholars evaluated this film, how Takashi Shimizu took the evaluations, and lastly my take on the reception that Shimizu and his film received. 

When Ju-on: The Grudge was released it was loved because of the atmosphere and unforgiving terror that Kayako brought to her victims, and even though the storyline jumped around potentially making some viewers confused, the curse always gave the audience a nail biting story to experience. Author Jay McRoy who wrote the book, Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema (2007), wrote about how movies like Ju-on and Ringu envision the avenging spirit as a woman was brutally killed and returns to curse the living (McRoy 2007). He also brings up how the consideration of motive behind the wrath of these spirits offers “...insights into the historical, political, and economic logics informing contemporary social and cultural tensions between nostalgic imaginings of ‘traditional Japanese’ past and the steady emergence of women as both single parents and active members of Japan’s work force.” (McRoy 2007). Lastly, McRoy suggests how the film’s fragmented storyline can mirror the collapse of family and modern urban life, which is a frequent theme in Japanese horror and especially in Ju-on specifically because at the end of the movie we see how the curse has washed through the city and destroyed all of the life that used to be there. 

Similarly, in a Harvard thesis written by Daniel Conneen, The Departed: A Departure from Early Twenty-First Century American Remakes of Asian Cinema (2021), he as well illustrates how Ju-on: The Grudge “...examines the ‘changing roles of masculinity and patriarchy’ in Japan, and the ‘consequence for society when men and fathers feel threatened by socioeconomic, political and ideological changes’ (Wee 123)...” (Conneen 2021). I like this idea because from all the movies we have watched and discussed so far in this blog I am pretty sure all had women dying at the wrath of a man or husband and becoming an Onryo because of it.

In a less scholarly take and more of a review on the PopCult blog by Seth Harris, he talks about how he wasn’t a fan of the disjointed nature of the narrative and how it felt as if the story was changing every ten minutes. But, he also mentions how he was a fan of the theme of vanishing victims, and how even with all the posters of the missing people posted around they still became forgotten just as the victim before them did. Harris brings up a point in his blog that I really wanted to show to you guys as he says how the “Victims aren’t immediately killed by the entities; instead, a sense of depression creeps in, causing the people to isolate themselves…That creates unease for the viewer because even in the places we expect to be the safest, we are actually sitting ducks…” (Harris 2021). He then connects this feeling to the spirit's anger because in films like these it is not uncommon for the spirit to be killed in a place they are comfortable with like their home, and because of that they believe that no one should feel at home in their home. I felt as if this was important to share because the way the spirit makes the characters and viewers feel has been seen in all the films we’ve touched upon and it really hammers home how the star directors of Japanese horror targets their audience. 

As for Takashi Shimizu’s response to the critiques and evaluations he was pretty reserved. In interviews he acknowledges how his decisions for the fragmented storylines and characters were intentional choices, and in an interview with Julian Singleton in 2021 for his film Howling Village he was asked how he plans to play with time and space, and how he plans to continue blurring the lines between past and present. Takashi responded by saying how he likes to “...capture that magic of time and space within the films I make.” So, I think that the critique of how he manages the storylines in his films doesn’t affect him because he loves writing his films that way, and honestly adds a certain level of specialness while you’re viewing it. However, when he was writing the American re-make, he changed the storytelling to make it a bit more linear than what was seen in the original because of the Western style he was presenting into, but while he listened to what they said he didn’t compromise his artistic vision.  In my opinion, I think that Takashi Shimizu did a terrific job with both writing the Ju-on series and also taking criticism about it and changing the film to fit the area he’s presenting to. I also agree with pretty much everything that the articles and scholars said about the film, as we have seen this stuff repeated frequently. Between the style and way that he formatted the film, I believe that it tells the story in a great way while hinting at the past, present and future all at once. Overall, Shimizu did a great job dealing and overcoming critiques while still portraying the messages throughout the film. I hope you all enjoyed reading this, and I hope I have expanded your knowledge of Japanese culture and horror!

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The Later Films

Hello and welcome to my blog!

After the success that Nakata had with Ringu, he returned just 4 years later with another horror film that followed the horror style that he stayed true to called Dark Water. This film continues Nakata’s style of atmospheric and psychological horror by following a mother and her daughter dealing with supernatural experiences while living in a run down apartment building. In an article done by Peter Bradshaw on The Guardian, he says, “Nakata cleverly uses all the taboo properties of water to underline the rising tide of fear…”, and also that, “He uses interiors and outdoor locations which are believably drab yet shot through with unidentifiable menace. Admirers of Ring will see similarities…” (Bradshaw). As we have talked about before with Nakata’s style, he maintains the style of making ordinary things become scarier through his use of camera work, lighting, and by making the viewer wonder what could be hidden that they aren’t seeing. In another article by Tom Wilmot written on ArrowFilms, he mentions how, “...anyone who’s seen the film will know that its suffocating sadness long outlasts the effects of any jump scare.” (Wilmot). What Wilmot is getting at is that Nakata really loved to focus more on the build up and story of the characters, creating a story that causes more terror than the scares themselves. Personally, I enjoyed the film and believe that it, as a whole, rivals the greatness of Ringu. I found Dark Water to be a haunting take on a life of social neglect in a place of decay, and the way that Nakata was able to portray that to the audience through the atmosphere and emotional depth of the movie corresponds to his previous works and styles of psychological horror. He truly is one of the best at creating anxiety for his audiences through his films, and without his works we might not have seen some of the great works that have come from him or people he inspired.

Clip of Dark Water : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lfzcd0zV5A   

Clip 2 : https://youtube.com/shorts/Vh59lxF9YFQ?feature=shared 

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Japanese Horror's influence

Hello all and welcome back to my blog! In today’s blog I will be talking about how the director Hideo Nakata and the movie Ringu have influenced other directors and movies over the years since it was released. With the success of Ringu that came from the mind of Hideo Nakata, it brought a lot of fame and fascination to the Japanese horror genre. And I don’t just mean that people enjoyed the physical idea of a ghost that was portrayed in the movie, but the style that was used in the movie. Like in my previous post, Nakata heavily used the aspect of slowly building psychological fear that has influenced film directors such as Gore Verbinski, who created The Ring in 2002, and James Wan, who created Insidious in 2010. Gore Verbinski pretty much remade the Ringu movie as it was just about the same in every aspect, and this was because he followed Nakata’s strategy in Ringu which was less gore (no pun intended), and more fear. The idea of the cursed video tape and the slow mystery being discovered were taken directly from Nakata’s film. There were also a handful of cinematic techniques that carried over from Nakata’s film to Verbinski’s film, those being the way that Verbinski used the same type of dull lighting to make the setting more unsettling and uneasy for the audience. Also, the pace of the movie and the camera work were just like Nakata’s, that being how slow and methodical the film was planned out to be with the lingering shots over intense scenes. I have attached a clip below of a scene of Samara crawling out of the TV and if you have seen Ringu you’ll see the exact resemblances that I was talking about. 

James Wan also used influence and techniques from Hideo’s film to have his take on horror with the film Insidious. In Wan’s film the story incorporates a demon that can’t be seen by the family that it’s terrorizing, so throughout the film you feel this sense of dread and build up from the eerie silences just like you would in Hideo’s films. He also adopted a few cinematic techniques from Nakata like the use of sound being silent and eerie until you least expect it so the audience becomes more disturbed. And, just like from the photocopy The Ring you see a lot of the same style with camera movements and lighting used to create space in both light and darkness making the viewer wonder what could be in the dark or if something is going to pop up behind the character for a scare. I will attach another clip below so you can see the similarities between the horror films, and how they both use the techniques to convey psychological horror to the audience. 

Thank you all for reading! I hope you have enjoyed and learned a little something about how Hideo Nakata’s techniques and certain style has influenced other horror directors to take the same route in order to scare their audiences. 

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Japanese Horror | Ringu

Hello all and welcome back to my blog! I am excited to share my experience and thoughts about the Japanese horror film Ringu with you all! When talking about Japanese horror you can’t not talk about the film that started it all and that is the film Ringu directed by Hideo Nakata. Ringu was a very thrilling psychological horror film that had me scared for the rest of the night after watching it LOL. 

I’m going to give a little brief overview of the film before we dive deeper into it for all the people who have yet to watch it (for everyone who has not I would recommend giving it a shot). The Ringu story follows our protagonist, Reiko Asakawa, a journalist who is trying to get to the bottom of multiple mysterious murders, one of whom she was an aunt to. Her search leads her to a supposedly cursed video tape which whenever it is viewed by somebody they will be dead within the next 7 days (let’s hope we mean business days!). A desperate Reiko watches the tape, meaning that she, unknowingly, is the target for the curse’s next victim. After that, she enlists the help from her ex-husband, Ryuji, and together they try to find answers which ends up bringing them to learn the brutal story of Sadako Yamamura, leading them to a race against what seems to be certain death. 

One key scene, which I believe to be the best and most chilling in the film, is right at the end when we witness Sadako pulling herself out of the television screen. The reason I love this scene is because of what I mentioned in my previous post. Hideo Nakata made the scene deliberately slow and uncomfortable with Sadako moving her body in unnatural ways to really push the mood of psychological dread. It uses different techniques than what we see in slashers, which is primarily gore and jumpscares, to make the viewers stay uncomfortable even after watching the film…it’s almost like Hideo wanted the movie to freak out the audience so much that they’d want to throw a blanket over the TV after watching! The approach that the movie took on horror was a huge stepping stone for horror in Japan as it set the genre and differentiated itself from what was seen in other horror movies during the 90s. 

One article that I found about Ring was written by Peter Bradshaw on Guardian and he talks about how the movie really made it a point to highlight its ability to disturb its viewers, and I fully agree with that after watching it. He also mentions how the film used Japanese mythology of a girl with long dark hair who is murdered in a brutal way and comes back as a vengeful spirit, and as we talked about from my previous blog that comes from the Japanese legends of yurei. Another article that I found about this movie comes from UK Film Review, written by Darren Tilby. In this article he talks a lot about the contemporary messages that the film was trying to send, those being how women struggle to live in a world run by a patriarchy. He also mentions about how the iconically unnerving the movie was, especially when Sadako crawls out of the screen, just like how iconic the Michael Myers mask is in the Halloween movies, and I think that this was a great comparison since being iconic is so important with horror movies and this movie certainly sells it. 

Thank you all for reading this! Below I will have linked the articles that I talked about and also the clip of Sadako climbing out of the TV so everybody can have a reason to hide under their blankets tonight. :) Ciao!

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Japanese Horror Movies of the 1990's - 2000's

Hello to everyone reading this! My name is Robby and I am excited to welcome you all to my blog in which I will be talking about Japanese horror movies from the 1990’s to the 2000’s. This blog is for anybody interested in Japanese horror movies, older horror movies, or even just getting into horror movies! I will be giving a broad overview of the genre in this first blog, so I hope you enjoy and see the different types of fear that Japanese horror can bring.

Throughout the 90’s and 2000’s it was a very special time for Japanese horror movies. With the success of directors such as Hideo Nakata who directed the very well known Ring series, and Takashi Shimizu who directed The Grudge, we saw a shift in what horror movies could be. Rather than all the jumpscares and slashers that we still see a lot today, they incorporated a lot of psychological tension and dread that would slowly build up for the viewers until they become extremely unsettled. These movies changed how people looked at and felt about horror movies as they provided a haunting feeling that you feel even after watching them.

A reason that I really appreciated watching Japanese horror movies is because, as mentioned before, instead of the films relying on jumpscares and slashing, they relied on the imagery portrayed, the eerie ambient sounds, and moments of creepy silence to gather suspense. A lot of these movies portray the ghosts shown as these pale women with long dark hair that had a tragic story before they died. This standard comes from the yurei legends which are stories about ghosts or spirits who are restless and still in the human world because of unfinished business from before they died, and they typically have some sort of supernatural powers which makes them so dangerous. The yurei legend has been used extensively everywhere, and probably in some shows you’ve seen before, for example if you’ve ever seen the show Supernatural it has several episodes that portrays a ghost with unfinished business in the physical world that appears to be able to move and throw stuff around without touching them. Back on topic though, the horror style that the Japanese took during the 90’s to 2000’s had an emphasis on how the viewer feels during and after the film, rather than what the viewers just see on screen. 

A few movies that were extremely influential during this time are (as briefly mentioned before);    Ring made in 1998 which some say was the beginning of the Japanese horror era, and it is still massively popular today because if you play the video game Dead by Daylight you would know that the iteration of this ghost is actually in the game as a playable killer. Other influential movies from that time was the Grudge, which follows the typical yurei legend ghost setup that we talked about before, and lastly the film Pulse which is uniquely different from the last two but it still has that psychological aspect that was so important.

These movies were all a massive influence around the world as we see them still being used and mentioned to this day, and I highly recommend watching these if no one has before. Next blog I will be taking a deeper dive into one of these films and analyzing it so you don’t have to! Thank you to everyone who read this, and I will catch you all soon!