Ju-on is among the most difficult series of films to separate out in your brain. It’s not THE most difficult, that honor goes to a famous Japanese ghost story best known as Yotsuya Kaidan, which has been told straight in movies over a dozen times. That story is sometimes intertwined with another famous Japanese story, The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond. There are too many combinations of Kaidan, Ghost Cats and supernatural bodies of water to sort them out. Those three stories make up nearly every Japanese Horror Film from the classic period, including Kwaidan, Hausu and Black Cat. For modern Japanese Ghosts, you start with Ringu, but the visual language penetrated pop culture thanks to one filmmaker, Takashi Shimizu.
The Ju-on series started as two low-grade TV Movies, now subtitled “The Curse”. Shimizu then made two theatrical features, now subtitled “The Grudge”. He then also helmed two films in English called The Grudge without the Ju-on. All six films feature a vengeful female spirit with long black hair named Kayako and a ghostly boy. The first Grudge is a direct remake of the first Curse with better production value. The series is thin on plot, so the films act more as a 90-minute collection of scary scenes. This one is often cited as the best because the camerawork and editing are that much more precise. For this one feature, Shimizu is a master of timing and the unexpected, leaving your nerves unsteady the entire time.
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