(2000, Japan)
The rare early entries in THE GRUDGE series.
THE SHORT FILMS - SCHOOL GHOST STORIES (TV)
It's a testament to his skills that the writer/director, Takashi Shimizu, can generate scares in under four minutes flat. He made two short stories on video, the very first to feature the JU-ON characters Toshio, the little boy, and Kayako, his undead mother. The two segments were part of a live-action Japanese TV series called GAKKO NO KAIDAN (SCHOOL GHOST STORIES) in 1998.
Set round the back of a school building, they can even be considered part of THE GRUDGE timeline, and the events are mentioned in the first video film (a girl has to feed her rabbits). The segments are called 'Katasumi' and '4444444444' and have been included on the DVD release of THE GRUDGE - DIRECTOR'S CUT, an extended version of the American remake.
THE VIDEO MOVIES - JU-ON: THE CURSE (V-CINEMA)
Inspired by the success of RING (1998), Takashi Shimizu formulated a story that fed on his own childhood fears. Like RING, there's a vengeful ghost with long black hair. But I find JU-ON films to be much scarier.
The first two are hard to find. They're often referred to as "TV movies", because they were both made on video, but were actually released in Japanese cinemas where 'V-Cinema' films are quite commonplace.
Despite their low budgets, they have an excellent cast, great sound design, and a complex plot structure, where every single scene is filled with relevant details that help viewers fit the jigsaw of events together. The storytelling, through careful framing and editing, succeeds in building up many RING-strength scares.
The low-key opening scene, of a teacher talking with his pregnant wife over dinner, is filled with details that will be relevant later on. When I first watched it, my heart sank! I thought it was so mundane, and recoiled from the 'video' look. But as the teacher starts talking about a child missing from school, and we see a brief flashback of him talking to the child's mother, there's a creepy shot of him standing in the playground, with an out-of-focus figure in the background. The mother moves forward, but her face is still indistinct, partly covered by hair. I was starting to get creeped out, and hooked...
The scares continue, sometimes barnstorming shocks, sometimes subtle hints of horror that we don't really want to learn details of (like how Toshio got to look so battered). As the teacher visits Toshio's home to see why he's not at school, he becomes tainted by the tragedy that began in the house. The teacher's story continues to unfold in the two parts of JU-ON: THE CURSE. While Toshio, his dad Saeko and mum Kayako are at the centre of the curse, the teacher Kobayashi is the catalyst - the first visitor. The curse spreads to Kobayashi's apartment...
The challenging, disjointed storyline sometimes follows seemingly unconnected characters. The films are divided into 'chapters' separated by fades to black. A person's name then appears as a chapter heading, then we find out how they fit into the puzzle. The viewer is left to work out whether the events come earlier or later than the chapter before. An important clue can come from the nameplate outside on the house's brick gatepost (the family surname), and it's helpful that this is translated in the subtitles.
The first two v-movies show us events that are only talked about in the later versions. They also contain scares that are later recreated in the US remakes - for my money, the 'girl on the stairway' scene is handled more effectively the first time it was done. There are also scares which are unique to these films, like those in the school, where the children carry the curse to their schoolmates.
Famously, Chiaki Kuriyama (Go-Go in KILL BILL) appears in the very first JU-ON film, the same year she jogged and stabbed her way into our hearts in BATTLE ROYALE (2000). She's in a scene in a deserted schoolroom, which still makes me jump after repeated viewing. Pestered by scary mobile-phone calls, this predates the 'haunted celphone' plot that was expanded so successfully in Takashi Miike's ONE MISSED CALL films.
The rest of the cast is very strong. The teacher is played by Yurei Yanagi (also in the first RING), the second householder is the hauntingly beautiful Kaori Fujii (who later appeared in HAZE) and even the teenagers are good. I was surprised to see that the little boy was played by a different child in these first two films. But the actors playing his Mum and Dad, (Takako Fuji and Takashi Matsuyama), are now the only actors to have appeared in every single version. Stair-crawling Takako even appeared in one of the early short films.
In keeping with the tight budget, actual locations were used to save on costly studio time. The crew were challenged by camera angles and lighting because they were shooting in a real house (even in the attic), but again this all adds to the effect. Even the two Japanese films that followed, were shot in this same house. It wasn't until the US remake THE GRUDGE, that a replica was built on a soundstage. Incidentally the real house is in the suburbs of Tokyo, in the huge Saitama prefecture, though the producers remain vague about its actual location. I think it's regularly used for TV work.
Bizarrely, JU-ON: THE CURSE 2 repeats 30 minutes of material before showing anything new. The repeated scenes make the film understandable as a stand-alone, but cheats viewers who have already seen the first film. Each part is only 70 minutes long, so there would be little harm in releasing a joined-up 110 minute version.
Part 2 continues with the second unlucky household to move in after the tragic Saeki family. We also see the police investigations flounder, due to mental breakdowns and further disappearences. Crucially, we see one of (the husband) Takeo's original crimes, in a shocking and horrible scene, only hinted at in the first film.
JU-ON: THE CURSE on DVD
These two video films are quite rare, and were first released without any English subtitles in Japan (from Toei Video) and Korea. They are hard to get hold of with English subtitles and hard to locate because of the many similarly-named sequels.
The best so far are the Asian Vision DVD releases, titled simply JU-ON and JU-ON 2. They're intended for the Scandinavian market, but have English subtitles on them. I've only found them for sale on websites written in Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish or Danish.
They are European PAL releases and have been poorly converted from NTSC. The picture also seems to have been electronically 'graded' the colours have been tweaked to look more filmic and less like video, fairly succesfully - but this isn't how it was first seen in Japan. The video conversion is a little distracting but the English subtitles are very good. The only extra on both DVDs is a trailer.
Don't forget that the second DVD only contains 45 minutes of new scenes, making it little more than a 'short'.
THE CURSE CONTINUES TO SPREAD
The popularity of these made-on-video movies enabled Takashi Shimizu to make his next two JU-ON movies on film, both released in Japan in 2003. My take on them is that they are sequels rather than remakes. They actually add new events to the story, and often refer back to things that happen in the video movies. It was only when THE GRUDGE was made in English for America, that he started to recycle and remake parts of the story. It was shot totally in Japanese studios and locations.
JU-ON: THE CURSE (Japan 2000, video)
JU-ON: THE CURSE 2 (Japan 2000, video)
JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (Japan 2003, film)
JU-ON: THE GRUDGE 2 (Japan 2003, film)
THE GRUDGE (USA 2004, remake)
THE GRUDGE 2 (USA 2006, sequel)
Yep, six movies so far, with an alternate Director's Cut of THE GRUDGE (2004) also out on on DVD, and a third Japanese GRUDGE film on the way. This series is definitely not Google-friendly.
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