I anticipated Ju-on with high hopes before viewing it. The American remake, The Grudge, was so awful that I thought the Japanese original had to be a better undertaking. I was sadly wrong.
From the first frame one feels the low budget quality of the picture. This by no means signals mediocre cinema, just take a look at Takashi Miike's Visitor Q. But, in this case, the poor production values put a real hinder on the film's scares. The atmosphere never attained that sense of dread that I relish so much in a good horror movie. Instead, the scenes just lulled me into a quasi-sleepy state, with a few jumps interspersed here and there. Added to this is generally bad acting by the cast.
Try to avoid this one, there are so much better J-horror titles to choose.
From the first frame one feels the low budget quality of the picture. This by no means signals mediocre cinema, just take a look at Takashi Miike's Visitor Q. But, in this case, the poor production values put a real hinder on the film's scares. The atmosphere never attained that sense of dread that I relish so much in a good horror movie. Instead, the scenes just lulled me into a quasi-sleepy state, with a few jumps interspersed here and there. Added to this is generally bad acting by the cast.
Try to avoid this one, there are so much better J-horror titles to choose.