Grudge

[Jason of the Fraternity]

Oh yes, in the scene where you see SMG going down in the elevator with Toshio looking in, the original had another character in that scene (the sister, ummm... I think it was Hitomi the one sucked into her bed) and she was taking the elevator up to her appartment.

Actually, I am pretty sure that the remake had Toshio looking through the elevator window as the sister was going up to her apartment. I remember wondering if there was going to be something waiting in the entranceway or the apartment when she reached her floor.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Okay, that bit is in there, the people who I was talking with must have missed it (no idea how if it is there). The elevator scene is one of my favourites from the original, like the scene where Rika (the character that was replaced by SMG) discovered the truth behind the ju-on.

And for a little teaser, I am trying to work the Ju-on into Ravenloft for Rokushima Taiyoo, as it would work well in a fuedal Japanese-esque setting.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

My review. Sorry if it ruffles feathers:

Sarah Michelle Gellar plays the role of Sarah Michelle Gellar in the Hollywood remake of the Japanese horror film "Ju-On: The Grudge." When a woman and her small child are murdered by their very hairy husband, their ghosts prowl throughout the house and downtown Tokyo, killing every single person who enters for some reason which is explained in a scene that can best be described as "very white and blue." Every horror film produced since "The Ring" has taken advantage of the glorious "white and blue" cinematic technique which guarantees their film will be at least 238% scarier, as it's a proven fact the colors blue and white are the most terrifying of the color wheel. For example, Booberry is white and blue and that guy is scary as all hell. I mean, a ghost that haunts breakfast cereals while wearing a derby and bow tie? Enough said.

The famous white and blue film technique is very simple and cost-effective for even the most amateur of Hollywood directors. Basically the filmmakers shoot their movie, edit it, and then run it through a giant rusty machine built by Martians which miraculously transforms every color into either blue or white. Red apples? Hope you like blue apples! I love blue and white, please Hollywood, keep eliminating every color of the rainbow because when I pay money to see a movie, I want it to look like I'm watching the reflection of my television set showing static inside a pan of antifreeze!

Bill Pullman has a wonderful supporting role as "some guy who does something" and kicks the film off into high gear by killing himself in an attempt to escape being in the movie. His death also marks the first of many unintentional comedic moments that causes the audience to laugh uncontrollably, a hallmark of any great horror film.

Gellar is visiting Japan, taking courses at a local university when her boss, Ted Raimi once again playing the role of a man whose face was mutilated in a printing press, gives her a job taking care of an old woman who sleeps in the aforementioned haunted house of doom. Somehow the old woman has an immunity to ghosts that Japanese girls and married couples lack, and she takes advantage of this by staring at the bedroom wall for a good three days or so while a couple ghosts walk around and toss Snickers bar wrappers all over the floor.

Gellar soon discovers that there's something strange going on in the haunted house, mostly due to the fact that it's haunted but also because roughly a half a million people have been murdered there and are decaying all over the place. After cleverly using the Internet and asking a Japanese detective why he was standing on a roof, she mashes the pieces of the puzzle together and realizes the house contains restless spirits of a mother and her son, both murdered by their husband years ago. It turns out that when you die in Japan, and you were experiencing some tremendously powerful emotion at the time, your ghost haunts the area where you were murdered because, well, it's Japan and that's just how things work. So if you're some really fat dude and die from a heart attack while eating a cheeseburger, your spirit will float around and make everybody who approaches very hungry for McDonalds. Likewise if you die using the Internet, your ghost will start making people act retarded and talk nonstop about Firefox and the .ogm file extension.

Soon sleepy blue ghosts begin appearing all over Japan and somehow kill every single person who ever entered the house except the extras who weren't important enough to warrant their own death scenes. I think they only haunt you if you physically walk in through the door; that is, if you're playing in the yard, you're probably safe. Or if you check their power meter outside, you're safe too. But if you walk in to fix the cable or you're there to deliver some flowers, then you're screwed. "Never deliver flowers to a haunted house" is one of the most prevalent mottos in the floral industry.

To make matters worse, getting killed by a ghost makes you become a ghost as well, and then you are forced to murder Sam Raimi's brother, a man whose fight-or-flight reflex fell off a horse during an episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess." Gellar, who visited the ghost house to pick up trash that the dead Japanese girl before her left behind once she was murdered in a closet, realizes that the she's next on the ghost's hit list, so she must act quickly and do something before something else happens and it's too late to do something else. Unfortunately, the ghost already has her targeted, and it causes very scary things to occur like grow a hand out of her hair (which disappears before she can notice it) and have her ghastly son hang out on every floor of an apartment complex while she uses the elevator (and never sees him).

(I've always wondered why ghosts in movies were so ineffective. I mean, they spend a ton of time ensuring scary things appear behind characters and in mirrors, but the people they're trying to scare never even see them. If I was a ghost and I was attempting to scare somebody, I wouldn't devote all my energy to doing crazy stupid things behind my target; I'd make well sure they saw me when I was materializing while projecting morbid images of Shannen Doherty with my hair!)

Modern Asian cinema is known for creepy visuals, dark atmospheres, and plotlines which constantly require the viewer to suspend disbelief. The Grudge is known for it's white and blue filming, sound effects suddenly playing at 100 million decibels to signify something scary has happened and you should therefore be very scared, and telling stories about a bunch of annoying teenagers figuring out mysteries by using the Internet. Combine both together and you get... well, I'm not exactly sure what you get, but it wasn't very good. The only frightening part of the movie occurred in the first 15 minutes, before I grew accustomed to seeing the ghost appear every 10 seconds, dictating exactly what to expect and when to expect it.

"Horror" does not mean eliminating every non- blue color of the rainbow and flashing clips of a cat boy emitting screeching noises in a closet at ear-shattering levels, and the only "grudge" I had during this movie was one against Sam Raimi for tricking me into spending my money to watch a bastardized Asian horror film. All in all, it was a deplorable moviegoing experience.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Whoa dude, save some for the buzzards! You just picked that sucker to death.

[Corrupted_Loremaster]

No sudden movement people...he might decided to "annalyse" us next...I'm scared

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

*SPOILERS FOR JU-ON*

My favourite scenes from the original involves a school girl who went to the house wit hher friends but flet, as she was frightened by something. The others found the way up into the attic and disappeared. The girl slowly becomes more paranoid and eventually plasters all the windows in her bedroom with newspaper, claiming that the 3 girls who died are looking in on her. She awakens at night to find that parts of the newspaper have fallen off and are strewn about her room, when looking out the window, her dead friends appear. They trail after her about the family shrine dedicated to her late father (who is also a pivotal character in the original movie) when the murdered mother rises up and drags her off into the darkness. When the 3 dead girls approach, her father appears also.

[Dr Bloodworth]

I wish they'd redo Uzumaki over here. That would be cool.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

I see Uzumaki working as a remake even less than I think the original movie worked. The original only containd a thrid of the story. I would prefer to see a series made of Akira, that contained the entire story.

However, thanks to Viz Communications, I think the entirety of Uzumaki is now available in graphic novel format, though I didn't buy any, or follow any GN releases after volume 2.

Monthly manga releases in the USA are on the decline thanks largely to pirated (and vastly inferior) fan-based translations, calling an end to monthly Viz releases and most of the Dark Horse manga releases, only anthologies make money these days for their versatility The greatest victim of late is DH's Aaa Megami-sama monthly release, forcing it to becomes a GN only release that I cannot afford with other GN's and books I have to purchase

[Gemathustra]

I wish they'd redo Uzumaki over here. That would be cool.

I'm just glad that no one has thought of making a movie based on "Gyo." That manga was one of the few things that has truly horrified and grossed me out upon the first reading.
That, and they stole my idea for insect-legged fish.

[Shoon VII]

i was wandering through Tower's DVD section and spotted Ju-on. i almost never buy a movie that i don't know anything about, and from what i've heard about the SMG version, i wasnt about to go and buy it.

something came over me. i actually bought it and liked it. granted, it did'nt scare me as much as Ghost Story did (as a child), but then again i'm a jaded 28 year old. i like japanese cinema in general and decided to add one of their horror movies to my collection of DVDs. while i still won't go out to watch the "Buffy the Toshio-slayer" version, i might go out and check out the original versions of these films link Ringu, etc..

if anyone else likes japanese cinema go and check out Hanabi by "Beat" Takeshi. i showed it to my students and they did'nt know what to think. They liked Kumonosujo (Throne of Blood) better. i'm still trying to get my hands on Yen Town. i dont think there is a region 1 version out though. Tampopo and Shall we Dansu were funny.

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

If you want to watch the original Ring movies (not Ringu, the word is in Romaji (english written in kanji/katakana) so the "u" is utterly ignored, as it's presence is only there due to the fact that Kanji and Katakana do not have a singular "r" consenant, for proof look for the Ring manga that was serialised in Shonen Ace a few years ago where the title is written in English characters as RING) then the following link will be of interest:

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=ti ... &p=57&g=72

The DVD's are Rehion 0, meaning they will play on any DVD player/recorder/DVD ROM, no mtter where you are in the world.

The box set also includes the unreleased Sleeping Bride that I saw fansubbed and it is pretty good.

[Shoon VII]

favorite part of Jo-on:

Rika is wheeling the old man into the building and he is paying peek-a-boo with nobody. when they enter the building, the reflection of the person the old head is playing with is revealed for a split second.

[Shoon VII]

If you want to watch the original Ring movies (not Ringu, the word is in Romaji (english written in kanji/katakana) so the "u" is utterly ignored, as it's presence is only there due to the fact that Kanji and Katakana do not have a singular "r" consenant, for proof look for the Ring manga that was serialised in Shonen Ace a few years ago where the title is written in English characters as RING) then the following link will be of interest:

tiotto nihongo dekimasuyo. daigaku ni benkyo shimasita.