Ju-On: The Grudge 2

Ju-On: The Grudge 2

Ju-On: The Grudge 2

I remember seeing the preview of this movie and thinking "wow" but sadly watching this movie left me with a now familiar feeling of "huh?". Okay I kind of get the ending (I won't spoil it) but some middle parts of the movie were just plain confusing and just seemed to be there for the sake of cheap scares or fill time, My main complaint is the Chiharu part of the story that just confused Me and seemed to be part of a totally different movie all together (it reminded Me of A Nightmare on Elm Street), I didn't mind the unexplained elements in Asian cinema at first but sadly it's starting to show up in more and more movies and is imo becoming a cop out to avoid explaining confusing elements of movies which don't add up or fit into the overall plot. Overall an okay movie but if I see one more Sedako style scene rip off I'll scream. 6/10

This sequel to the Japanese hit surrounds how the grudge curse affects the lives of a TV show crew and an actress who do a show from the accursed home. Ju-On: The Grudge 2 's story is told in the same non-linear way that the first one was, but this time around rather than being effective it seems to just muddy the whole film. It will leave you scratching your head at times and might even be a bit frustrating. The sequel lacked the overall atmosphere of the first one. It had several good chills or two and even a boo now and then but the overall effect is a bit lackluster and disappointing. The moral of this story is to be wary of ticked off people, especially dead ones and for heavens sake clean that stain on the carpet, it may well be a portal to another zip code.

Ju-On The Grudge 2: 3 out of 10. When horror franchises go back to the same well they often attempt to at least make superficial changes in the main character's circumstances. (It's Jason but he is in 3-d. It's Jason but he is in New York. It's Jason but he is in space.) Now I'm not suggesting these efforts actually worked. (Leprechauns in Space or Children of the Corn in the ghetto are two abominable examples but I have to give the Halloween people credit when their main killer Michael Myers went off to do Wayne's World) However at least these franchises made the appearance of some effort. Ju-on the Grudge 2 is actually the fourth or fifth Ju-on movie depending on who is counting. And it is the exact same house and the exact same ghosts and the whole grudge part makes even less sense than ever. (Even the Amityville Horror series had the decency to leave the damn house eventually) To make matters worse we have had approximately 100 white screeching ghost chicks with black hair Asian horror films since the first one. It seems like every Asian culture is raping their heritage to come up with their own home grown spook. (Strangely enough one of the recent knockoffs I saw Thailand's Ghost of Mae Nak used Final Destination death scenes rather than the black haired white faced knockoff to get scares. Even the Johnny come lately realize that this genre is spent.) The ghosts once again are the marshmallow boy and the scary woman with hair of death. The movie is shot Memento like completely out of order. Needless to say this does not help matters. The death scenes are generally not shown but suggested which can add to the confusion. By the time you figure out what is going on the movie is half over. Some effective scares but the wig bit in the middle and the Omen stuff at the end had me laughing with disbelief. Large amounts of silence and a ridiculously slow pace will challenge even the most caffeinated viewers to stay awake. The main characters don't help as they are pretty boring and lack any personality or spark. Ju-On the Grudge 2 is the same movie as the others but with less. This sequel is for a fanatic or completest only.

I Start of with the The Plot: As driving, the pregnant horror-movie actress Kyôko Harase and her fiancé are in a car crash caused by the Toshio's friend. Kyôko loses her baby and her fiancé winds up in a coma. Kyôko was cursed together with a television crew when they shot a show in the haunted house where Kayako was brutally murdered by her husband years ago. While each member of the team dies or disappears, Kyôko is informed that she has a three-and-a-half-month-old foetus in her womb. The first Ju-on-The Grudge was the creepiest movie I have ever seen. It scared me for two days,Just when you thought The Grudge couldn't get any scarier then Ju-on-The Grudge they bring the Spine-chilling Ju-on-The Grudge 2. This is one hell of a scary movie, From the start to thr end you will be left confused by some scenes, the more confusing it gets, the more it creeps you out! This movie has some very creepy scenes that keep you on the edge of your seat but then the last ten minutes of the movie was just petrifying, it scared the living daylight out me! Acting from the whole cast was great! This sequel was more creepy then the first movie but less scary then the first but It's one of the best horror sequel EVER! I give 9/10

This film is the scariest film i've ever seen in my whole life. It is miles scarier than the first one. Usually when you watch a sequel to a really good film it is crap. This film is such an exception to that rule it is unbelievable. This film takes J-Horror to a whole new level. The story is very good although a bit confusing with the time jumps and everything, but you can kind of get the gist of it before the movie ends. The Last scene in the hospital has stayed in my mind. It totally freaked me out. I was disappointed that they didn't have a lengthy stairs scene as that is my favourite scene from any horror movie ever. If you were scared at the first film you will be terrified at this one.

I found this even more confusing (and even less frightening) than the first Grudge film, with which it shares many features: The same lack of coherent plot (again I had to refer to the synopsis (above) to find out what the film's actually about), the same white-faced children, the same girl from The Ring (nice effect the first time I saw it, getting a bit passé now), same pools of water (ooh, scary, scary water), same silly hairpiece dragging itself across the floor (couldn't the characters just squash the thing with a heavy book or something?). Not scary in the slightest: would probably have been better billed as a light comedy, or a soporific.

The first film Ju On: The Grudge, is personally one of the scariest films I have seen so I had high expectations of the sequel. I was sadly disappointed. Ju On: The Grudge 2 really was a pointless exercise in film-making, that starts off poorly, barely keeps it's head above water in the middle & completely falls apart in the final third, it appears that the good ideas were used in the first film. Sure you can get away with a lot in the world of horror but too many of the plot twist were just comically absurd & the whole Chiharu sub-plot was completely irrelevant to anything else in the film & didn't need to be there. The whole rebirth concept reminded me a lot of the first Ringu sequel(Rasen) & guess what, it didn't really work for that series either but I did think that one it's own Rasen was a better film than Grudge 2.