Kanji Tsuda, Kayoko Shibata, Megumi Okina

A mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.

Flixster Users

74% liked it

32,629 ratings

Critics

56% liked it

68 critics

R, 92 min.

Directed by: Takashi Shimizu

Release Date: June 27, 2003

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DVD Release Date: November 9, 2004

Stats: 1,709 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (1,709)


  • April 15, 2009
    This is a remarkable movie. When compared to American films of a similar nature, the ghost stories of Asia tend to be subtly crafted tales of chilling suspense host to a plethora of pasty yurei wielding the power of unrelenting, unblinking passive-aggressiveness. Ju-on, however...( read more), is refreshingly different. The bizarre imagery and surreal plot typical of J-horror spook stories are present in force, but Ju-on's token onryo is one so hell-bent on vengeance she is unafraid to wreck all manners of creative, bloody havoc on-screen. Thus is crafted the perfect storm: J-horror subtlety and quirkiness meets the Western slasher mentality head-on. (A formula that is still being copied!) The result is an extremely frightening, haunting film that is equal parts strange, atmospheric, and in-your-face scary. A definite must-see for all genre fans, and my #1 recommendation for all desiring their first taste of Asian horror.
  • September 5, 2008
    Although the word "grudge" doesn't quite fit the bill as part of the title of a horror film -- one thinks THE CURSE would have been more appropriate but such is the "curse" of translation -- JU ON holds up extremely well as a horror film. Built upon a notion that when someone die...( read more)s victim of extreme rage, the emotions are left behind and this overpowering, negative emotion will kill anyone who comes into the house, JU ON first gives us a grainy montage at the start of the story of what seems to be a man killing away his entire family. This sets the events that come next, told in a non-linear way so as to disorient the viewer of what has happened/will happen like for example, why is the old lady seemingly living in squalor in this otherwise impersonal looking place, and what part does her most recent caretaker, Rika (Megumi Okina) have to play there?

    I've always believed that using subtly disturbing images instead of bringing the horror up front in a broad manner creates more of a punch for the viewer. Amping up the dread, even when the horror seems inevitable, creates a sensation of anguish because one knows that something is terribly out of kilter in this house. What director Shimizu does here with introducing the old lady in the unkempt house by having us see her hands weakly bang on the rice door, and then having her stare vacantly out to nowhere as Rika tries to clean up the place only to later meet the entities in the house, is unsettling as anything else that comes later. She whispers, mantra-like, something closely rendered to an "I told you so" and one only has to see the mounting horror in her old eyes to know something horrible is about to happen to her while Rika witnesses this and faints in horror. It doesn't matter that one sees the little boy running around and then mutely screaming in that cat-like shriek, or the shadow and croak of someone even worse... it's the inexorability in which this curse comes forth and attacks this old, defenseless lady, and then each person who has come/will come in contact with it, and when it becomes clear that the curse is not bound only to the haunted house but is in fact a growing web of death, the rug gets neatly pulled out from the viewer's feet, because safe becomes only a word and something wicked this way comes.

    This is a film that people will love or hate. I don't think there will be an in-between feeling. The way that these ghosts manifest themselves as if they were part of the living, leaving hand-prints and footprints behind, the way that horror draws itself on screen -- in barely there suggestions like when Rika is wheel-chairing an elderly man who is making faces; we see the one second reflection on a glass door of Toshio, the malevolent boy --, the way the actors react to fear which is anti-Hollywood, the non-use of swelling music but the use of eerie sounds, this is one very spooky film which can stand aside some of the greatest ever filmed. Quiet yet intense, relying on atmosphere and dread, JU ON is very chilling, and very effective. This is the horror that is rarely done today.
  • January 31, 2008
    creepy as hell...they kind of ruined it with the american remakes
  • January 22, 2008
    -Clueless person enters haunted house
    -Long haired female ghost and a kid that ate a cat grabs said person
    -Repeat this till oblivion.
  • November 2, 2007
    If this film was any longer I don't think I'd have had the patience to sit through it. Frankly, it only makes occasional sense and the deliberately confusing narrative, replete with unacknowledged shifts in time, would still annoy if it even bothered to explain itself. I'm not th...( read more)e biggest fan of Japanese horror movies; they too often confuse 'Disturbing' with 'Scary' when they are not necessarily the same thing. This film is neither one thing nor the other.
  • November 12, 2009
    ehh. Horror sequels ar never very good
  • November 4, 2009
    Way creepy. The Ju-On saga is the real horror movie!
  • November 2, 2009
    how scary can a movie be? this movie is so much better than the american version. Although i love american movies, they cant capture the darkness and intensity like the japanese original. The bed scene still pops in my mind
  • October 26, 2009
    Humming into a floor fan will never be the same again.

    This Guy Over Here picks this as one of the Best Horror Films of the 2000s
  • October 23, 2009
    this will give you a nightmare

Critic Reviews


October 8, 2004
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Shimizu is obviously impatient with dull exposition and wants us to get straight to the good scary stuff. full review

September 16, 2004
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

While the film wouldn't go on my list of horror classics -- the acting is often stagey, the effects are cheesy, and one particular groaning floorboard sound effect is drastically overused -- it is an ... full review

August 13, 2004
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

A slightly muddled but still powerful ghost story. full review

July 21, 2004
Edward Havens, FilmJerk.com

A nearly bloodless and scare-free exercise in futility, jumping from scene to scene with very little continuity and even less comprehension of the concept of true fear. full review

View more Ju-on: The Grudge (Ju-on 3) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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