If you know me, it's no secret that I'm a fan of Japanese film. I hold a special place in my heart
for J-Horror classics such as Audition, Ring, Battle Royale (yes, I believe it’s J-Horror) and
Pulse. One of the big names that I hadn't seen yet was the Ju-On series, so one night I decided to
do a double feature of Ring and Ju-On: The Grudge— BIG MISTAKE. I should've never ever
paired those two movies together.

You may be wondering why I watched The Grudge before The Curse, and the truth is that it was
an accident. However, I don’t think my opinion would’ve changed even if I had watched The
Curse, in fact, it might’ve been worse. I went into the film pretty blind, but expecting the sort of
quiet creepiness that is usually conveyed in the J-Horror I’ve seen. I knew there was a little boy
who ran around, and I remember seeing a clip of the Scary Movie parody. Turns out, Scary Movie
was not that far off!

In all honesty, I didn’t hate the movie, but the reception of it made me upset. I was looking at the
Letterboxd reviews afterwards, and they were all rave reviews with this really gross affection.
Just because the movie is Japanese doesn't mean it's good.

I have a lot of understanding for movies that have old special effects that might look dated like
Pulse or Ring, but The Grudge didn’t really try to augment the tight budget. There’s something to
be said for the unknown being scarier than what we can see, and it doesn't help that we see the
little kid within the first five minutes of the movie in full force, just staring at us covered in white
paint. The same thing goes with his mother Kayako towards the end. The premise of this film is
promising, but the execution is just not engaging to me and the backstory is not as fleshed out or
compelling as it could be.

In Ring, the antagonist is the vehement spirit of a girl who is the daughter of a woman who was
taken advantage of and abused by the world around her. The most compelling part of the story is
that even though the two main characters went to the well the girl died in, tried to get her out,
and even went so far to express their love and sympathy by embracing her skeleton, she still
continued to murder the cursed people until they discovered the caveat to escaping the curse.
She doesn't care if she's still malevolent, and if you don't copy the tape and give it to someone
else, she will find you. There is no retribution that can placate this spirit, and that's the idea that
is attempted in Ju-On, but it doesn't have the same effect. Kayako was obviously unfairly
murdered by her husband, and I guess that's why she continues to haunt people but like, ok. Why
is she a contortionist and why is she wearing a wig? The non-linear storyline is also a bit
confusing– it’s not that I don't enjoy non-linear storylines, but it was a little bit pointlessly
nonlinear. There were only two sections that were really switched out of the linear narrative and also at the end of the story, the final girl that is haunted by the mother and child duo
eventually turns into the mother. Does this mean Kayako possessed her, or does it symbolize her
passing the torch of the curse on (in this case the torch is a wig and gymnastic abilities). Does the
boy eventually choose a victim to do this to? Or does he live in white paint in perpetuity with
rotating ‘mothers’? Why didn't Kayako transfer to any of the other people that she haunted? The
Grudge came out in 2002, about four years after Ring was released, and echoes too many
similarities to its predecessor without any of the benefits that made Ring so good.

The spirits in Ju-On manifest at the household, taking over the people that had moved into the
household and eventually destroying them, but to have it spread from person to person was
seemingly no rhyme or reason was a bit odd. There were no rules to which person was chosen,
and while that could be an interesting concept it was made to be confusing. There was a man on
the case of the original family’s murder-suicide that came back to the house and was killed. Why
wasn't he cursed the first time he was there, and why do only some of the people that are haunted
turn into the entities that would stalk other people and why doesn’t this fate befall the other
victims? Why did the final girl “turn into” the woman who initially died (the mother of the
painted boy) and where do the rest of the victims who stalk people go? Do they go back inside
the house?

Now, my main issue is not all of these thoughts that I have had that I listed above (surprisingly).
My issue is with the way that people are treating this movie, especially on Letterboxd. If you
look at the reviews, they're all ranting over this movie and how Japanese horror films are so
much better than American Hollywood movies. By the way, the American remake of this movie
was directed by the same Japanese director, so it's clear that they're just they just wanna hop on
the bandwagon of liking Japan, or fetishizing it to be some mystical magical land where
everything is bullet trains and kawaii maid cafes. Listen, I’m just as skeptical of American
remakes as the next guy, but come on.

This sort of behavior regarding other countries and their movies is just odd, especially when
there's just a lack of regard for them in any other capacity. Of course, this is a genre that I really
love and I enjoy, but I also can identify when a movie doesn't make sense or it's not that good.
Just because it's not Hollywood doesn't make it automatically good.