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The successful Japanese horror series, Ju-On (The Grudge) returns to the screen with its latest direct to DVD bundle – Ju-On: White Ghost / Black Ghost.
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Originally released in 2009 to mark the 10th anniversary of director and writer Takashi Shimizu’s revenge-seeking ghosts, these two short contrasting features promise a pretty decent spook in the tradition of the previous films in the series.
“White Ghost” tells the tale of Akane, a high school student with psychic powers who starts experiencing disturbing visions that lead her to discover the terrifying truth of her childhood friend’s murder and her father’s sudden demise when she was a child.
True to the fashion of the previous films, the plot jumps around the various characters with each character chapter eventually leading to the nature of the ‘Ju-On’. There are some inconsistencies in the telling of the character chapters, with some feeling as if they don’t belong in the plot and others that do not develop the characters fully.
However, the audience can take heart in knowing that these short stories do build up to a quite gory and disturbing climax.
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In “Black Ghost”, Yuko, a young nurse is tasked to look after a girl who is unfortunately ill with a strange growth in her stomach that turns out to be the girl’s unborn twin with a strong urge to exact revenge on the people around her. Although the characters in the second feature are better developed, the unborn twin plot becomes overly familiar as the plot thickens.
One of the reasons why the “Ju-On” series is so appealing is the different ghosts that embody the various grudges. Who can forget the trademark ghoulishly pale skin coupled with that mass amount of jet black hair, huge black eyes and that eerily disturbing clicking sound that they ghosts emit?
The new short films introduce new ghosts to the “Ju-On” family and they still appear in the oddest places and suddenly grab at the different body parts of the human characters. It is the appearance of these characters that contribute to the entertaining spooky surprises in both shorts.
While the shorts do not have anything new to offer to Asian Modern Horror and the story may not be as well told as its predecessors, the films still have the capability to make the audience jump out of their seats and take just that second glance in those dark areas around them. While these films make a worthy addition to the collections of fans of the J-Horror genre, it is advisable for the unfamiliar to start with the first two films in the series.
The DVD bundle is available now from Madman Entertainment.
