Ju-rei: The Uncanny (2004)

Seriously, this movie features an incredibly flawed concept, that is besides is also being incredibly simple and formulaic. Basically all this movie does it telling the same story over and over again, in 10 different chapters, involving different characters.This is basically what happens in every chapter; person hears a noise, person checks it out, person sees a ghost, person dies. Really, this is what happens every time! And was every story supposed to be related? I don't know, or perhaps I should rather say; I just couldn't care about it and the movie didn't make enough effort to make this clear enough. It for some odd reason also gets told in refers order. So the movie starts at chapter 10 and ends at 1, with a prologue and an epilogue to it as well. Why? Just because they could I guess, since this approach doesn't really add anything to the overall movie.From a movie featuring different chapters, with different stories and characters in them, you would expect some more variety but 3 chapters in makes you realize that this movie is going to do absolutely nothing original and will keep on repeating itself, till it's finally over. Guess everybody can make a movie that way. It doesn't require any originality or true effort.Besides, every chapter is just a few minutes short. How is its tension supposed to get buildup that way? How are we supposed to care for characters we only see a few minutes? It all fails at it because of the reason that most chapters are such incredibly short ones. One is even about 30 seconds long, which perhaps was the weirdest moment of the movie. And because of it that the movie is basically the same thing over and over again, it totally looses its power. It ruins the tension and almost completely destroys its horror because you already know what is going to happen in each chapter. Perhaps lovers of Japanese horror can still mildly enjoy it. I mean, it's some very typical stuff all and in all honesty it's not the worst thing you could watch.Totally lacks originality and keeps on repeating itself! There are still far more worse movies to watch out there but there is no reason either why you should ever go watch this one.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Ghostly women with pale faces and long, dark hair? Check. Said ladies making vaguely comical cackling noises? Check. Creepy set-pieces leading to a confrontation with creepy long-haired, cackling, jittery ghost-women? Absolutely. Scary? Well...no.Anyone familiar with Japanese horror, and the Ju-on series in particular, will notice some similarities in the above description, and this isn't a brilliant coincidence. Ju-rei takes all of the best bits from Ju-on, and a few other films such as the out-of-focus spectres from Kairo, some of the sound design from the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre etc. and utilises them to almost zero effect. Every scare misses the mark because they have been done so much better so many times before. It's almost as if you are watching a parody of Japanese horror films - the way everything is constructed suggests a meeting with the filmmakers could have gone thus: 'Okay, so the girl hides under the covers but instead of having her come UNDER the sheet, she's waiting ON TOP OF IT!...and we'll use stock sound effect number 24b from the Ju-on catalogue of cackling.' As for the production values; there aren't any. Amateurishly shot on video with a total disregard for framing and lighting, most of Ju-rei looks too dark (in one case, a shot is obviously brightened up in post) and the quality of the transfer (on Pathfinder DVD) is poor, to say the least.I wouldn't recommend this film to anybody interested in Asian horror. It's dull, repetitive, derivative and completely unrewarding on any level. Avoid.

There is a curse affecting all who come into contact with it. It's spread like a horrible disease that only requires contact with an affected person. If you have the curse, you can expect to die a terrible, horrific death. The problem is that you may not know you've been cursed until it's too late and you see the black figure coming to get you.If you are a fan of horror and the very brief description sounds familiar, don't be surprised. Ju-rei exhibits very little in the way of originality. It's the best parts of Ju-on or The Grudge repeated over and over. The ghosts look the same, sound the same, move the same, and have the same motivations. Furthermore, within the movie there is also little originality. The movie is divided into ten chapters. Once you've seen two or three of the chapters, you can pretty well guess what's going to happen next. One chapter is almost the same as the next chapter. There nothing much to make one chapter distinguishable from the others. While I found the first couple of chapters fairly frightening, the repetitive nature of the movie really hurts any scares in the later chapters.The story is told backwards from chapter 10 to chapter 1. At first this seemed to be an interesting, unique way of telling a story. Trying to figure out who was who and how they came into contact with the curse was part of the fun of playing along. But, after a few chapters, it really didn't seem to matter much. Again, the lack of originality really hurt the movie.Another problem I had with the movie was the beginning and ending. Or, to put it in a better way, the lack of a beginning and the lack of an ending. The movie presents no resolution to the events in the movie. It just ends. Likewise, the movie does not present a clear starting point. It's as if the curse has always been there and we are just viewing part of it's progress. I felt very unsatisfied.

Just like a million ranch-house mommies think they can make food in their crock-pot that rivals that of real-life restaurants, Ju-Rie is an amateur, contrived thing that attempts to distill all the winning points of the films that obviously inspired it. Distill is a generous word, on second thought - this movie blatantly steals every device it uses from other successful J-Horror flicks, then proceeds to use those devices in shameful, uninspired ways. It's the movie equivalent of mugging someone and spending your stolen gains on cheap Mexican candy.Still, it's got a moment or two. They make use (I won't say EXCELLENT use) of the placement of creepy images in the periphery of a shot. so that you may or may not even notice them on any given viewing (a technique that's truly chilling used by skilled directors), which is nice at times. And really, if you want a non-scary breakdown of J-Horror formula points, this thing watches like an instruction manual.Three out of ten.