The Grudge

Jim Daze

Well-known member
The japanese version of this film pretty much qualifies for one of the scariest films I have ever seen. I did not know that it had been re-made, I can't imagine the re-make is half as good (they never are) because a major factor in the atmosphere is it's Japanese setting.
It is relentlessly terrifying from the outset and offers no reprise, just 'sheer unadulterated terror' to nick a quote from the back of an H.P.Lovecraft paperback.

Check It. :eek:
 

mind_philip

saw the light
I haven't seen either version (would like to) but I do know that the remake has the original director and keeps the Japanese setting, just throwing Buffy and a couple of other American actors into the mix.
 

xero

was minusone
I'll have to try and get that one, sounds amazing - have you seen 'dark water' by the director of the ring? It gets a bit silly right at the end and is never particularly scary, but the sheer feeling of mounting unease is like nothing else I've seen
 

mind_philip

saw the light
The ending aside, I thought Dark Water was fantastic too. It actually made me wonder if there's something about the place of Ghosts in japanese culture that I don't undersand, so it makes their behaviour in japanese horror films seem a bit weird. DW has also been remade with Jennifer Connelly, and I think, Walter Salles as director. Hideo Nakata is directing the sequel to the 'Ring' remake with Naomi Watts et al(not, confusingly, a remake of Ring 2 but a new story).
 

xero

was minusone
mind_philip said:
It actually made me wonder if there's something about the place of Ghosts in japanese culture that I don't undersand, so it makes their behaviour in japanese horror films seem a bit weird. D.

try and see 'kwaidan' if you haven't already - 4 short ghost stories made in the '60s by director Masaki Kobayashi. Again not scary as such but quite macabre and visually stunning
 

mind_philip

saw the light
Any idea where I'd find a copy? I'm a novice where Japanese cinema is concerned, I just have a fondness for horror, so the weirdness of the behaviour of ghosts in the few Japanese films I'd seen struck me.
 

xero

was minusone
mind_philip said:
Any idea where I'd find a copy? I'm a novice where Japanese cinema is concerned, I just have a fondness for horror, so the weirdness of the behaviour of ghosts in the few Japanese films I'd seen struck me.

I think it was on tartan video (VHS) I rented it from the film shop in broadway market, hackney - dunno if that's any use to you!
 

Melmoth

Bruxist
mind_philip said:
It actually made me wonder if there's something about the place of Ghosts in japanese culture that I don't undersand, so it makes their behaviour in japanese horror films seem a bit weird.

Japanese society was propelled into so-called modernity by the bomb; middle european society by the camps; Irish society by the famine. All are haunted by ghosts of a folk culture that was not yet ready to die.
 
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