Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4791 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-22
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Dubbed, PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 92 minutes

Special Features
- Audio Commentary By Asian Cinema Expert Bey Logan - Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic [Digitally Re-Mastered And Restored] - Dolby Digital 5.1 / Dolby Digital DTS 5.1 - Languages: Japanese, English - Subtitles: English [Re-Mastered]

Synopsis
Among the scariest movies ever put on celluloid, like its similarly styled sister, RINGU, this tale of death-by-curse is nothing short of blood chilling. With chapters named after each subsequent victim, it plays like a series of increasingly daunting, deadly vignettes. All of the stories surround a haunted house where the evil spirit of a 5-year-old boy still lurks. The first to enter the residence and be cursed is a young hospice worker visiting an elderly client. She finds the boy duct-taped in a closet, where he first appears to her in the form of a black cat, and then shows his human form which is a shockingly ghoulish white face and blackened eyes. Invisible to all except for those who are next to die, his presence seems like a true mystery. But when family members, friends, curious teenagers, and frightened police investigators begin to drop like flies, it is clear that his spirit thrives. Perhaps it is the unsolvable problem of the boy's vengeance that makes the premise so terrifying--his anger and his penalty cannot be curbed. But unforgettable scenes, such as the boy's very dead mother crawling serpentinely down the stairway, deserve the lion's share of the credit for the fearfulness of the film. What's more, the percussive, electronic score by Shiro Sato is spine-tingling. From Japanese director Takeshi Shimizu, whose RINGU was so successful that it received both prequels and sequels--and a Hollywood remake, THE RING, with Naomi Watts--fans should not miss this extraordinary fright-fest.

Customer Reviews

Scared me
For years i have beeing looking for movie to scare me and nothing did untill i saw Ju-on: The Grudge I knew it was scary , i didn't think it would have scared me so much as it did.

After watching Ju-on: The Grudge, I was pleased with how it ended but overall I was scared out of my mind. Never again will I watch a Japanese horror movie alone.

This film was both creative and fascinating. It was a great look in Japanese folklore. Comparing this movie to the American version, this one was more scarier and was done better. The American version was more into the effects and the shock factor. This original focused more on the scare factor, the kind that lasts more than a second.

With the intertwining of stories and how they overlap makes it s movie you have to think about. The end result left me satisfied yet wanting to know more. I wanted to see more scares and more chills. There was a lot of explaining to do and since I don't speak Japanese, I had to read a lot.

Although I found a lot of similarities to The Ring and Ringu, with the long hair of the girl draped over her face and the house being cursed like the video, there are a lot of good qualities that make this movie enjoyable to the horror movie fan.

WOAH
I bought this by mistake - instead of the slightly better known American version. I have watched hundreds of horror films, which compared to this, are mediocre at best. My friends are supposedly 'hard to scare' and have not been at all affected by the more modern horrors, to this film however, were screaming and hiding behind cushions. They needed to have a 'buddy' to go into the kitchen to get a drink, and to this day I believe they have not ventured up the stairs...

Though the story jumps around and can be very confusing, this has to be one of the scariest films ever made. Particularly the boys mother crawling down the stairs - I have never been so freaked out in my entire life, and as my sitting room is at the bottom of the stairs...!

The plot is confusing and I still dont understand some of it, however I think that this adds to the general underlying fear atmosphere within the film. The film generally relys on the veiwers fear of the unknown, and my gosh, this film is guarenteed to scare the living daylights out of you.

If you never want to be confident walking upstairs or opening doors, then this film is for you!

Classic Japanese Horror
This film really is vastly superior to it's Hollywood remake. Tense and atmospheric, with far better acting, and completely lacking in the hollow gloss of the American version. The fear of these Japanese actors is far more real than anything I saw in the American version, and what's more, the mood of the film is far more expertly crafted; subtle.

It concerns a family who have gone missing, and several social workers who are sent out to investigate their apparently abandoned home. What follows are a series of sinister and genuinely unsettling chapters all of which use a very visceral and striking directorial approach, which is characteristic of Japanese horror films. Lurking cats, oddly creepy children and the frequent use of striking visual imagery are all used to great effect.

That's what makes this film so enjoyable: a great sense of style, subtlety, supernatural suspense, and some genuinely creepy scenes. Which all goes to show that excessive gore and half-naked, blonde American actresses are superfluous to great horror films.