I came to this movie by a rather unusual route. Back when I had Horror-Web I got a review copy for the book by James Wong “This Book is Full of Spiders.” The title grabbed me and it went instantly to the top of my read pile. And then I found out there was a prior book and a forthcoming movie! Still haven’t picked up a copy of the John Dies at the End book.
But the movie. Wow. What a fun romp.
Now don’t expect it to make much sense. Essentially the story follows a pair of friends who stumble into something. It all centers around a drug called Soy Sauce. The drug is like an acid trip but with reality actually warping around you after taking it. And terrible things are happening in this altered reality that impact regular reality. Like John dying, but still being alive and an integral part of the story.
It’s hard to get into the nuts and bolts of this. But it is absolutely worth tracking down and watching. Find it streaming. Buy a DVD. Come over to my church and we can sit and watch it. So many options. But it is fun, so do yourself a favor and add some fun into your horror life!
Part of my delay in getting J done centers around my misplacement of all the Ju-On dvds I own. Finally found out where they were, and when I picked them up the first movie in the series was not among them. So technically I could have done this based on memory of the movie rather than a rewatch.
And to be honest, the details of the movie aren’t important. The idea of Ju-On centers around ghosts that haunt a location in Japan. Everyone who goes to the house finds themselves a target for the malicious ghosts retribution.
Each movie is broken into segments. The original movie was a made for tv movie and the segments look and feel like segments between commercials. Which is actually pretty cool. The idea of watching this on tv with commercial breaks I find fascinating. Would have loved to see it this way. Even when they went to theatrical releases, the movies maintained that format.
Some see this as a massive negative. Because we don’t get to know anyone for long in this franchise. As horror vignettes that will always end poorly, I enjoy that. But I doubt you are sitting down to watch Ju-On based on your desire for a happy ending… well, spoiler alert. Don’t.
There are a number of really good, tense, creepy moments in each of these films. The woman in an elevator not paying attention to the view window as she goes up misses seeing Toshio gazing at her from the same spot on every floor. Lying in bed and lifting up the covers to see Toshio on your belly staring at you. The girl crawling down the stairs is creepy.
If you want to watch a tense movie, this will scratch that itch. There have been 13 in the franchise overall, but as you can imagine, the American ones don’t have the same tension. So watch the Japanese first.
Also an interesting note I didn’t realize… Ju-On has been largely written and directed by the same creator that did the movie I recently talked about Homunculus.
Cthulhuville 