Theres nothing like taking a beloved franchise and picking its corpse totally clean. This generally happens all the time in the movie industry but its still hard not to feel a gentle nudge of disappointment whenever it occurs, and now Japanese horror staple Ju-On (known in the West as The Grudge) gets the bottom of its figurative barrel well and truly scraped.
Contained on this single disc are two short films, each somehow revolving around the infamous house from the first film. In White Ghost, a group of tenuously related individuals are terrorised by the memory of a brutal massacre committed seven years previously. In Black Ghost, the furious spirit of an unborn twin comes back to haunt its sister and those around her.
¬¬The Japanese horror industry is rightly respected for its use of minimalist techniques to really up the creep factor (the original version of The Eye remains the single scariest film I have ever seen), but here, the low budget and barely coherent stories take their toll on even this impressive pedigree. White Ghost is certainly the more watchable of the two, with a clever Memento-esque two-way storyline and better scares. Black ghost by contrast is a mess, with twist after twist forming a confusing jumble with no inherent point to it.
Quite how this even made it over here is a bit of a mystery. Japan and Korea produce better work than this on an almost weekly basis and flogging this dead horse does nothing for the Far Easts solid reputation.
Overall Verdict: Never in danger of measuring up to the best that Japan has to offer. One mediocre film and one quite bad one combine to make a mainly unsatisfying horror combo.
Special Features:
Trailers
Name of Reviewer: Alex Hall