originally posted on tumblr, Mar 6th 2026 

Movie-A-Day-Thon #11: Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)

Sometimes, you hear about how japanese this or that is the best thing ever, and sometimes they are right, but most of the time you think to yourself, “I’m sure it’s good, maybe even great, but people just glaze japanese anything so much, it feels like orientalist bias”. And sometimes, you would be right, and it’s like not that great after all. Sometimes it’s kind of mid but because it’s Japanese™, people think it’s somehow better.

Ju-On is not not one of those cases for me, if that makes any sense.

I’m not sure how to phrase this, but when you go through some of the classics - regardless of the genre or medium - and as you watch them, they come across as a bit underwhelming because the tropes and trappings of it feel kind of worn out and maybe a bit dated. They just don’t hit as hard because you’ve experienced them so often. And I feel like a lot of the scary elements in Ju-On fall into this.

Something about the POV switches between the characters, with title cards and all, was kind of endearing? Not in a patronizing way, though I do feel like it made for a slow and stilted start, it just reminded me of anthologies or a comic series, and each character was a separate chapter or issue. Brought me back to me reading some Junji Ito short story collections back in high school, it was neat!

But for the same reason, it felt a bit hard to care about the characters much. Also felt a bit too “spook of the moment” rather than a cohesive story, even though it very much has one. Some of the scenes and jumpscare tropes were really good and effective! But then the characters would die and we would move on to the next one and it just numbed me halfway through.

I really wanted to like this movie, not just because of the hype around it, but it just wouldn’t stick the landing for me. It got better about a third of the way in, but then it plateaud again up until twenty minutes left of the runtime, and the ending just… I don’t know. It was more sad than scary, which is kind of the point but also, didn’t quite land for me. I don’t mind open-ended endings, but this one left me feeling baffled that it was over, personally.

Regardless, I’m gonna give Ju-On: The Curse a try at some point, just to see if the vibe is better. Unlikely I’ll watch Ju-On: The Grudge 2. I can see why a lot of people liked this series, but it’s a miss for me, sadly. Just not enough atmosphere and the pacing bounced me off.