Ju-On 2

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Rated: Not Rated

Lions Gate: October 10, 2006

92 Minutes

From Amazon:
Takashi Shimizu's inexhaustible obsession with the Ju-on franchise finds a creepy outlet in Ju-on 2, which by most accounts is actually the fourth Japanese feature in the bunch. It returns to the style and structure that made Ju-on: The Grudge such an unnerving experience: the child demon with the blue face, the clicking/croaking that accompanies the appearances of the female ghost, the chockablock chronology that treats each haunting as a jigsaw piece to fit together into the whole. The plot follows an actress (Noriko Sakai), known as the "horror queen" of movies, as she deals with the repercussions of a car accident in which she loses her pregnancy. Or does she? Pregnant or not, the idea of going with a small film crew to the very haunted house where the unpleasantness of the original took place is probably not a healthy idea. Some of the scares still work just fine if you're watching this movie with the lights out, but the feeling of discovery, in the wake of the original Ju-on, the Ring films, and the Hollywood sequels, has definitely worn off by now. Thus the unshakable feeling that Shimizu is going through the paces with this one, rather than expanding on a pretty nifty original idea.

I have high, high expectations of J-Horror films so I was a little disappointed with Ju-On 2. I thought it was going to be so much more superior especially to it's American version. I can't remember much from The Grudge 2 but I'm fairly certain that I might have like it better. But, that's not to say that everything about Ju-On 2 was bad, it wasn't. It definitely had some good points but it had a lot of negatives as well.

I'm not going to explain what the movie is about like I normally would here. It's a Ju-On/Grudge movie and they are all relatively the same. I found myself thinking "I've seen this before" or "This is exactly like some other movie." Ju-On 2 is like a ripoff of The Eye/The Eye 2 and Shutter. Compared to the first Ju-On, this movie was pretty bad.

I don't really know what else to say about Ju-On 2. I had high hopes and they weren't met so I'm left wanting more, enough said. I'm happy it's part of my collection but if I didn't own it I probably wouldn't buy it. Well, I might just because I plan on owning as many J-Horrors (well, horror movies in general) as I can!

My Rating: 3/5
Ginger