Is spooky season technically behind us? Yes. Does that mean I’m going to shut up about horror films, ever, in a million years, even in my wildest dreams? Of course it doesn’t. Let’s talk about The Grudge!
Ju-On: The Grudge, directed by Takashi Shimizu and released in 2004, holds a special place in my horror-loving heart. It was one of the first real horror movies I watched – not a family horror, not a comedy piece with horror elements, but a stone-cold horror horror movie. And, to be quite honest, it took fourteen-year-old me by the throat and never let go; I watched it at a friend’s house, had to walk about a quarter-mile home in the middle of nowhere in the pitch dark later that night, and genuinely thought I might die of fear at any moment. It scared the bejeesus out of me, as I’ve talked about before, but beyond just making my little teenage knees knock together, it also, at nearly twenty years old, remains one of the most polished and cohesive horror films I’ve ever seen.
In a lot of ways, it feels like Ju-On really shouldn’t work. It’s almost an anthology piece, a non-chronological collection of short stories following various disparate people unlucky enough to wander into the haunted house consumed by the spirit of the movie’s title; it doesn’t have one central throughline in the same way many other haunted house stories do. It’s very different in terms of storytelling and approach when compared to a lot of horror that was coming out at the time (at least as far as Western audiences were concerned), but the sheer strength of this premise and the effectiveness of Shimizu’s direction brings it all together into this eery, compelling masterpiece.
I’ve still never seen a movie that has captured as perfectly the disquieting, disturbing atmosphere of Ju-On, and trust me, I’ve been looking for a long time. Shimizu works his ghosts into the mundanity of everyday life in a way that chills me to the core – almost matter-of-fact in their presence, if it wasn’t for their obvious malevolence. Nowhere is safe from them, not even the confines of your own bed, and their quiet but relentless pursuit has a horrible inevitability to it. I really don’t think that Takako Fuji gets enough credit, either, for her iconic and era-defining performance as Kayako; her movement, her presentation, her facial expressions, they’re all just the right kind of off-kilter as to build this deep sense of unease every time she’s on-screen.
But I think what makes Ju-On so brutal to me is how unfair it is. In most stories of hauntings and vengeful spirits, there’s some kind of rulebook for how this works and how you can escape from the grasp of the terrible creature on your tale – Ju-On doesn’t give the characters, or the audience, any such out. The cursed house is utterly unremarkable, but the moment you step inside, that’s it – no matter who you are, what you’ve done, it will come for you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. The way it functions as a metaphor for domestic violence – this utterly normal-looking house that destroys those who get too close – is perfectly-pitched, and adds a layer of grim realism to the supernatural elements.
Ju-On: The Grudge is still, for me, the gold standard of haunted house horror movies, and twenty years later, it still chills me just as much as it did the first time. What do you think of the Grudge series? Were you as terrified by this movie as I was? Let me know in the comments!
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(header image via Cinema From the Spectrum)
No But Listen 