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Overall Rating : 5.5/10
Directed By : Takashi Shimizu
Noriko Sakai
Chiharu Nîyama
Kei Horie
Yui Ichikawa
Supplied By : Lionsgate Films
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Oct. 11, 2006
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| PLOT A B-list actress, Kyoko is asked to appear on a show about haunted houses. Inevitably, the show ventures into the house of the previous films, where the evil child-spirit is again disturbed, and causes a car accident that puts Kyoko's husband into a coma and kills the child she is carrying. |
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| THE REVIEW In continuing with the JU-ON tradition, Writer/Director.Takashi Shimizu followed up his J-Horror theatrical hit with JU-ON : THE GRUDGE 2(or just simply JU-ON 2 as it is being called for it's American release) with another anthology tale, all evolving around that old familiar curse. The main character of the film is Kyoko, a young Horror movie actress known through out Japan as "The Horror Queen" Well as fate would have it a pregnant Kyoko and Husband Masashi are in a violent car crash. The crush brutally injures Masashi and lands him in the hospital, while Kyoko loses the baby. Trying to come to grips with losing her baby, Kyoko continues to work, and one of the first appearances she makes thereafter is on a Horror talk show hosted by Tomoka Miura. On this particular show they happen to be discussing "haunted houses" and among the main subjects is the dreaded house from the previous films - it catches their attention because real-life murders had happened there. Curious, Tomoka, and film crew along with Kyoko pack up to shoot on location at the very house. While shooting there everything seemed to go over fine, until a sound guy catches a distinct sound on his recorder( that all too familiar "uhhhhhh" noise) - this has the crew worried and it isn't long until they leave the house. They soon realize that even though they left, something has followed them and all involved in the production are soon met with a grisly fate - all seem to stem from their involvement with Kyoko - who is seemingly still pregnant unexpectedly, with something of pure evil. I have always said there's nothing like Asian Horror - I don't watch it much( because I hate reading subtitles to be honest). but when I do, I am more times impressed. People like Takashi Shimizu, Takashi Miike, really have it down to an art form of how they like to bring on the fright in ways you don't necessarily see here in the states - while Miike being more shocking, Shimizu being more practical. I remember seeing the first JU-ON shortly after seeing the first Americanized remake back in 2004, and I was far more impressed by JU-ON than I was that remake. The reason for that is that the original JU-ON was obviously filmed on a much lower budget than THE GRUDGE was and with less CGI - the filmmakers were still able to pull off a film far more frightening. JU-ON 2 still has the great shocking moments that won me over with the previous film, however, I found the original to be more raw and much more well executed, Here although still unorthodoxed, the scares seem a lot more predictable.... in JU-ON you just didn't know when or at what point you were going to be scared, here you kind of see it coming. However I did like the idea of having a film crew involved in the plot, it almost seems like a plot out of an American Horror movie at times, it moves at a fast pace and never stops, this was one improvement over the original, I really liked how the characters are incorporated around Kyoko. |
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| GORE
METER 2/10 The death scenes are more from a psychological stand point, rather having them be gory, It was freaking seeing little Toshio play with the corpses,,, |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 5/10 Very suspenseful score, basically picks up where JU-ON left off, really adding much more impact to the more terrifying scenes. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM JU-ON 2 has a great plot, with some great effects, but to me, while it is a good film, it didn't pull me in quite like the original did. I would however recommend this, you may even want to check this one out before you see THE GRUDGE 2 remake... |
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