Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)
Always wanted to watch this and now I am. Behind on movies so no intro and I’m doing
this while I watch, deal with it. The
movies opening text said something about when a person dies in the middle of a
rage, a curse is born and that possibly is called. This chick named Rika works at a social
welfare place and is given a crappy first case.
She shows up at the house of an old woman that is covered with
trash. Either she is really lazy of
needs the help. The old lady gets a sponge
bath and then Rika gets to cleaning. She
does some poking around and hears a noise coming from a room. She walks into it and the closet door has
been heavily taped shut. The noise was
that of a cat.
The tape was probably there for a reason but she pulls it
down anyway. Rika opens the door and
finds the cat and a child locked inside.
Rika goes back downstairs to see the old lady who is his grandma and she
keeps repeating “I told her like you said please stop tormenting me”. Then a black ghostlike figure with red eyes
swoops down on her and causes Rika to faint all while the boy watches.
Things fade out and the text Katsuya appears on the screen
meaning this movie must be broken down into segments maybe by each
character. This time it seems to focus
on the daughter in law of the old lady.
That must be Katsuya. She hears a
noise and checks out what’s going on.
She follows the cat and a ghost white little boy into a room
screams. Hours go by and her husband
walks in and is looking for her. He
finds her in a bed kind of paralyzed, possibly by fear. The little kid runs behind him while he calls
for an ambulance. That boy is so
sneaky. He pops up again and makes a cat
noise. The wife then looks like she
dies.
Next the wife’s sister walks in. The house looks like garbage and only the
dude seems to care, which is strange for a bunch of Asians. The sister bumps into the husband who just keeps
saying, “That’s not my baby. That’s not
by baby” leaving me to believe that possibly the ghost kid isn’t his baby. His acts really trippy like this has bothered
him for a while and kicks the sister out.
I finally realized that his name is Katsuya and he walks into a room
where a different ghost, this time of a girl, looks out of a window.
Ghosts must all be in college
Katsuya’s story is over and we move on to the sister
Hitomi’s. It starts with her leaving
from work and calling to say she is on her way over. In the bathroom she gets a call from the
sisters cell and all you can hear is a croaking before it’s disconnected. Before leaving, she sees a ghost like woman
come out of the stall next to hers.
That’s why you want to avoid public bathrooms. Hitomi gets a security guard to check it out
and watches him get sucked away by the shadow ghost thing on the cam.
No big deal though so Hitomi heads to her apartment. Something cool happens in the elevator where
you see the little boy out the window as she goes up each floor. She calls brother in law over because she’s
freaked out and he shows up at her apartment except when she opens the door, no
one is there except for the phone croak again.
Weird stuff is happening to her.
She puts on the TV to ease her mind and the lady on there got all distorted. To top things off, it was making the croaking
sound again. Hitomi hides under the
covers and is joined by the ghost girl.
End of that segment.
The next one is called Toyama and I have no clue who that
is. Rika’s boss stops by the house to
check on her and finds the girl in shock not moving and the old lady dead. He calls the police who find Katsuya and the
wife dead in the attic. The cop stops in
on her at the hospital and tells her that the family who lived there had no kids
so who whoever she saw wasn’t their kid.
The police look into a report and find out that a guy killed his wife in
that house and the ghost boy was their kid.
The wife’s body was found in the attic.
So things are starting to make a little sense.
Some guy is talking to his daughter when the police come up
to him and ask him some questions. His
name is Toyama and he was the cop who was in charge of the case from the last
paragraph. Rika talks to the detective
some more who tells her that the boy was never found. Also someone stumbles upon Rika’s boss
handcuffed to a sink dead and Hitomi is missing. Things aren’t great for this family right
now. Toyama watches the security footage
from the dead rent-a-cop and sees a black figure walk out of a room and stare
right into the camera. Still no real big
scares.
Rika wakes up that night to the boy sitting on her bed and
the girl ghost leaning over her while croaking.
Toyama breaks into the ghost house with two whole cartons of gas and
starts dumping them all over the floor.
It’s nighttime and he opens a door to see the house in daytime with a
girl running out. Coolest thing
yet. Same thing happens upstairs but it
turns into a ghost room. The two other
detectives run in the house just in time to see the ghost girl climbing slowly
down the stairs.
You would think this would be scary but they just sit there.
The fifth segment is named Izumi. She’s the chick that Toyama saw running down
the stairs in the house. I think she is
Toyama’s daughter. Two of her friends
come over and she is looking a little bit like she might be the girl
ghost. Izumi tells them a story about
how se went to a haunted house with three girls who are missing and saw them
there last and feels like they are coming for her. She freaks out again, the friends leave and
they also notice that Izumi’s eyes are turning black in every picture.
Izumi wakes up that night and the three missing girls ghosts
appear and the original ghost girl sucks her away. She appears as a ghost next to her ghost dad
Toyama who died somewhere I guess.
ENDING SPOILERS
The last story is of Kayako, the wife. She takes a shower and feels a hand on the
back of her head but when she turns around no one is there. We get back to Rika who sees the ghost boy at
a restaurant. Weird things happen to her
like she dreams about being in a room full of black cats and her friend is
called to the house of kid in her class who also happens to be the ghost kid so
she has to Rika run over there to deal with that. Rika shows up right as her friend is being
dragged up into the attic. The girl
ghost is the guilty one and chases her around the house a little. Rika stops by a mirror and see the ghost
climbing out of her clothes but it’s nothing.
I’m pretty lost. The girl ghost
climbs down the stairs and is covered in blood.
The guy who killed his wife to start everything walks down the stairs
now and kills her I guess. Finally the
empty town is shown and covered in missing posters meaning maybe the whole
place is full of cat ghosts now.
Scariness wiped away by bad haircut
Favorite Scene: Definitely when Toyama was walking around
the house and opened the doors of daylight which probably was of the future too
Memorable Lines: Not really.
Rating: 6 5th Avenues. I like what they attempted to do with
splitting the story into each characters segment but when it comes down to it,
the movie didn’t have any real scares.
Every once in a while the ghost would show up right next to one of the
characters but that was it. Also the
ghosts are just people with covered in blue paint with black eye makeup. The stories linked together pretty well but
it was hard at times to tell when things were taking place. Then again, I’m dumb so that could be it too.
Alternate Ending: I watched it on YouTube. The director cut it because it was too
long. The original ghost dude wraps up
Rika and she realizes that she is doomed to continue the ghost trend. It’s a little better than a hand just being
stuck out I guess.
What I would do if I was the main character: If I see a
stupid looking girl slowly walking down the stairs trying to kill me I would
probably kick her. At least attempt
to. Lying down in fear isn’t a big help.
What happens in the sequel: I bought it when a blockbuster
was going out of sale for a dollar so I’ll end up seeing it sometime soon.
I have like 6 of these ready to post so be on the look out.
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