Look! An obnoxious little cat boy!
In a cursed house, an angry cat boy and his creepy mother are wreaking havoc! They are killing innocent, happy people. Don’t enter this house, because you will never smile again! Just ask the people who were killed—one of them is missing her jaw. She looks terrifying! You and me, baby, going out on a date tonight?
After Ringu, the Ju-on franchise is the second most well-known Japanese horror franchise. It started small, as Ju-on: The Curse was a direct-to-video movie, and it shows. It looks and feels cheap, but that doesn’t make the movie bad. It helps create a more unsettling atmosphere.
The storytelling in the movie is a mess since it’s hard to understand the curse’s rules. The cat boy isn’t confined to the house, and people who haven’t been inside the house also get the taste of the deadly curse. The movie never tells us the rules of the curse, which is stupid and weak. I have watched this movie many times, and I always scratch my head when watching it.
We follow a lot of different characters who have no personality to speak of. They have one function: to be tormented and killed by the dead cat boy and his creepy, dead mother. If you enter the house, you will be killed, and it also seems that the curse spreads outside the house without the movie explaining it. Bravo, Takashi Shimizu, you lazy man!
The movie has a couple of intense and scary scenes with the angry mother of the house. Especially the first scene where she shows herself, and the last scene is so good and intense if you haven’t watched a Ju-on movie before. You will have a hard time breathing because the angry woman can’t get any closer to the victims’ faces.
As a tension-filled movie with a creepy atmosphere, Ju-on: The Curse still works today. However, the story, characters, and rules are awful, so just be aware of that. But it’s still worth watching because of the fantastic atmosphere.