A good reason not to visit Japan.
Released: 2003
Genre(s): Horror, Thriller
With "Ju-on: The Grudge," horror fans were given a sinisterly bone-chilling haunted house story, complete with creepy, Japanese spooks crawling out of random shadows. However, the pacing of the first title lacked consistency, allowing the tension to build up nicely enough, only to drop off completely and without warning whenever a new "chapter" of the story decided to randomly interrupt the current scenario. While "Ju-on: The Grudge 2" returns to this vignette-driven formula, each segment feels more intact than those in the previous film: the plot doesn’t just suddenly jump away without first ensuring that your skin is crawling with the ferocity of an angry anthill. The menacing atmosphere seems to have more stamina in this iteration as well, rarely letting up, even when transitioning between scenes. The creep-out factor in this movie is ramped up significantly from the first, with the ghosts finding new, awful ways to terrorize their victims, which consequently means there’s more for the audience to bite their nails over. Even though everything feels very familiar in this film, the execution here is just so much more effective than in the first movie, making it a clear improvement over the original in almost every respect. This sequel is an incredibly unsettling thrill ride that will have fans of the first "Ju-on: The Grudge" feeling even more creeped out than before.
Rating (out of 5): 4
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