Ju-on: The Grudge 2 (2003)

As i promised on my comment to the first Ju-On, this is the text for "Grudge" in the Oxford Dictionary: "Be unwilling to give or allow; Resentment; ill will". As you see, has nothing to do with the film. This is another Surreal movie and well done. Surrealism is still alive, in various areas of art, although converted to Expressionism, "Abstract Expressionism". See works from Pollock; Jasper John, Rauchenberg and so on. I myself am a painter and took the same evolution. You can see my work in YouTube with the TAG: sapocem. This movie is a masterpiece of the surreal thinking, closer to dreams than to reality. It makes you wonder about your inner conscience.

Ju-on: The Grudge 2 (2003) ** (out of 4) I thought this was the second film in the series but it's actually the forth one. I enjoyed the first film in the series but this one here was pretty disappointing. A TV crew is making a documentary on the house from the first film when their lead actress becomes cursed by the house. The same director as the first film (and its American remake) directed this one but most of his tricks are old and tiresome here. There's one good, creepy scene but that's about it as far as scares go. The director does a very nice job with the pacing of the film, which is good since not much happens.

While driving on the road, the pregnant horror movies actress Kyoko Harase (Noriko Sakai) and her fiancé have a car crash caused by the fiend of Toshio, and Kyoko loses her baby and her fiancé stays in coma. Kyoko was cursed together with all the television crew when she hosted a show in the haunted house where Kayako was brutally murdered by her husband. While each member of the team dies or disappears, Kyoko is informed that she has a three and half month fetus in her womb."Ju-on: The Grudge 2" is a very creepy and scary horror movie, based on a Japanese legend, and disclosed in a non-linear screenplay. In the beginning of this sequel, the explanation of the curse is presented again. When a person is killed in a violent way, his or her death generates a curse that will stay in the place where the crime took place. If another person visits the haunted place, he or she will be chased by the fiends till death generating another curse.Like the first one, this movie impresses because there is no bloody scene, only a tense psychological exploration of the inner fear of human beings for the unknown. The story is very simple and low paced, there are very few special effects, a great use of sound, no gore, but the creepy atmosphere is really frightening. I startled many times while watching this film. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Ju-On, O Grito 2" ("Ju-On, The Scream 2")

Eerie, very effective sequel to Ju-on has Takashi Shimizu returning as the director. The film follows several characters and how their lives never are the same once they enter the cursed home of the original. A horror actress loses her husband to a coma after a horrible car crash thanks to the ghostly boy from the original film(he grabs the steering wheel in a spooky framed shot). It appears as if she loses her unborn child but she meets the ghost boy who touches her belly mysteriously. Later she finds that she in fact is three months pregnant. Question is with what kind of child? And, how come does people around her suffer the wrath of the ghosts of Kyoko and Toshio and not her(even her mother perishes)? Others who fall prey to the curse include members of a film-making crew making a documentary regarding the supposed cursed house and it's history. The director, a make-up girl, a reporter and her lover..all these unfortunates never could've imagined what lied in wait for them the moment they entered the residence of a horror house of two vengeful ghosts. As our heroine begins trying to understand what the deal is with everyone around her dying or vanishing, she makes some scary discoveries such as the fact that the woman who died in that cursed home has her name! You have to ponder, why does Toshio seem to stay around Kyoko the actress a lot? The film uses the Pulp Fiction non-linear formatted screenplay having the characters effected by the curse alternating around each other from segment to segment(Like in the original, Shimizu frames segments titled after each main character effected by the curse and how each story often overlaps the other). The film has very imaginative, spooky special effects where we see the two ghosts appear all over the place from windows, copier machines, a pool of blood on the floor,& from the video screen. You just never know when these two will pop out at you or when they will attack their prey. You can see much more inspired direction from Shimizu here in his native japan than in the two American films he made where the same ideas are often recycled and not-that-scary.I'd have to say this was one of the best I've seen from the new Japanese new wave of horror. That ending should give you the willies once Kyoko finally gives birth.