pixelperfect

Another absolute stormer from the man who melted my brain with the excellence of Tetsuo as a teenager to such an extent that I had to pull it out and iron it and put it back in again. Then I went and saw Hiruko The Goblin. Ow....then Shinya popped up acting in Ichi The Killer a couple of years ago and I was reminded once more what a sick, deep and utterly vital gentleman he is. This is his take on the erotic thriller, and is fairly restrained by his standards and all the better for it. OK he does strangle a man with a metal penis at one stage, but one would feel let down without at least a touch of the old body horror. Actually this film has plenty of that, but it's more acutely concerned with a (sadly) more everyday disease that the fetishishic, grim techno porn of his earlier work. interesting performances, utterly compulsive storyline and busy, atmospheric camera-work would recommend this film to anyone fond of the director, and to a wider audience too one hopes.

Not fit to even exist in the same universe as Visitor Q as an example of what can be done with the digital video medium. Just.....grrrr ! Shocking. The most irritating, talentless junkyard of a cast. Rhys Ifans ! Jesus ! It was just....I'm speechless....head spinning. Timecode was a dud also, but at least the interactive DVD features were interesting. I'm very very pro-experimentalism, but this was just like watching the worst kind of amateur dramatic brainless show off rubbish. The script was improvised, which might be fine if you had remotely intelligent, inventive actors who could have made it work..not the hammy shame-ghouls we have on display here. Julian Sands is the least annoying...THAT'S how annoying this is.

Brrrrr...........

Not bad at all, in fact. Like a great many people, I'm always suspicious of the artistic motivation behind re-makes, but Shimizu's been hacking away at this little gem for a few years, so the guy should certainly be allowed his big US cash-in on the very finest horror movie of all time. This is essentially a greatest hits compilation from the 2 TV movies and Japanese theatrical releases with the bland (but financially astute) addition of Buffy to pull the mainstream punters. The plot will possibly (?) confuse first timers a little bit as,despite being more conventionally linear than Ju:on , the story is shifted around so that there is only a limited exposition of what actually happened in Kayako's family near the end.

Still, nice to see one wonderful scene re-instated from the earliest incarnation of the series (I'll just say the word "jaw" here), and the other bits done reasonably well, although the climatic moments and the shower scene just don't quite seem to have the oomph of the real Ju:on. Kayako is as frightening and compulsive as ever (has her voice got deeper in this one though ????) and the American characters are just as silly as the ones they replaced in the original with the famously daft "hiding in bed" scene re-done here for example....

Hopefully this classy "summary" film will encourage more people to seek out the originals (ideally to demand them back in theaters), although I suspect that, as with "The" Ring, some will prefer the mildly processed cheese cover version.

Grudge 04 is a worth addition to the series (though buy no means the best) and should provide a great deal of well deserved coinage for all involved to continue scaring the Kayako out of us for a good while to come. 8/10