Masayuki Ochiai’s Ju-on: The Final Grudge, the eleventh in a franchise that begun during the years when Japanese horror was the toast of the town, is mostly a lot of the same, which does not necessarily translate to anything good.
Running on fumes
The Ju-on films follow characters who are all bound together by their being fatally haunted by a duo of ghosts, the mother-and-son tandem of Kayako and Toshio.
Presented anachronistically, the films are paced sparingly, often climaxing its extended and eerily moody sequences with scares that have their characters victimized in the most ingenious of manners. In a way, the films are fueled by its deviousness, with its ghosts appearing in the most unlikely and familiar of places and thereby breeding the relished suspicion from their fans. Nothing is safe.
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Sure, it’s all gimmickry. By the time the interest for Japanese horror was waning, the Ju-on films were running on fumes. The anachronistic manner the films laid down their repetitive narratives is frustratingly confusing. The ghosts, wherever they appear and however they kill their prey, no longer have the imposing novelty. They’ve become as commonplace as a lot of Japan’s pop culture artifacts like Sadako, Hello! Kitty and Pikachu.
Scaring has in turn become a harder chore. It’s no longer as simple as pitting the franchise’s pale-faced spooks with their anonymous victims. It needs more effort. Unfortunately, the Ju-on films never really graduated from the formula.
Carbon copy
Ochiai, who helmed the live action adapation of Parasite Eve(1997), hospital-bound horror Infection(2004), the Hollywood version of Shutter (2008) before being recruited to direct Ju-on: Beginning of the End (2014), continues with the franchise without much ambition for where it is headed.
The Final Grudge looks, feels, and plods exactly like the rest, except that with the franchise’s declining popularity, the film is deprived of the visual flourish that usually accompanies any authentic vision. It’s all profit-motivated routine.
Worse, the film has abandoned a lot of the practical effects that gave the first few Ju-onfilms a certain palpability – despite all the devilish fantasy – for the convenience of shoddy digital work. The Final Grudge is riddled with scenes whose climactic scares are betrayed by hilariously awful visual effects.
The film’s best moments are the ones where the suspense is sustained by efforts to the imagination, such as when a lass from across the haunted house observes Toshio through the screen of her cellular phone.
Sadly, the moments that work are outnumbered. The film has simply given up with putting any further effort in pushing the envelope to explore areas that would arouse fear from its audience.
Final squeeze
The Final Grudge is that pathetic and disgraced bow to a genre that has produced classics like Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001), and Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call (2003). It feels too much like a stretch, a final squeeze to a formula that has lost its luster several years ago. – Rappler.com
Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ 'Tirad Pass.' Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. Profile photo by Fatcat Studios