Ju-On Origins: J-horror Reclaimed

I traditionally kept television out of this blogs but 2020. In any case this one posed a problem for me which could only be resolved by finishing the series and letting it haunt me. This is an intense horror experience and not for the casual viewer. But it intrigued me that a short origins event was made for this franchise which expanded far more than the Ringu-verse but well under the radar by comparison. 

Ju-On (aka The Grudge) began as a fairly standard J-horror with an iconic ghost and a series of short scenarios over different time periods in the same house with the concept that an atrocity cursed the space of the home and affected its tenants thereafter. I casually used to put this film at the end of J-horror's brief but powerful run of half a decade, beginning with Ringu in 1997. The apple hadn't fallen far from the tree by the end but its flavour was bred for intensity. Where Ringu is refined and underscoring Ju-On was blatant and often nasty rather than eerie.

The influence extended to all Asian industries, notably Korea and Hong Kong but further than these, and I would grab as many as I could find, unreviewed and sight unseen, from an online shop in HK which had a massive range, cheap prices and lightning fast shipping. Once I'd filtered the J-horror influence the expected few gems with more of their own character appeared and I treasure those to this day (e.g. A Tale of Two Sisters or The Eye) but with the filter intact it was pretty easy to discern what was and wasn't J-horror and diaspora, some of which took Ju-On's more violent and sordid approach than Nakata's subtle tack (further refined in my favourite cinematic ghost story Dark Water).

So, when Ju-On: Origins appeared as a Netflix original last year I wondered if I'd bother or get beyond the first episode. Then again, reliable reports were recommending it hotly and at six half hour episodes in entirety it didn't seem like a big ask. So, finally, I put myself in front of it. It's still bouncing around in there and probably will continue so I decided that rather than review it like a film I'd just give a few impressions and make a qualified recommendation for the curious.

The first thing to be aware of is that the cursed house - the kind of suburban Tokyo place under constant cloud cover that everyone who's seen J-horror will know well - is the centre of the curse and can extend its influence via the afflicted going out into the world. The second might sound like a spoiler but is revealed early and sets the machinery for everything to follow: the house exists outside of time, once you are in there you might see yourself in the future or the past and sometimes that other might see you. The third thing is that you need to keep on the ball to be aware of when and where you are and who this or that character is because you won't be getting a lot of help. The original film had a time shift element to it in the story of the detective and his daughter which constituted a genuinely moving moment. That continues like all the other elements from the original into this telling and that includes the nastiness and violence. This last gets extreme.

So it's intense, confusing and might be unwatchably violent, why should you waste your time? Maybe you shouldn't. If, however, you are interested in a distillation of a popular and much diluted horror franchise so that it presents a kind of primer for the whole thing but in such a way as to demand you watch closely, you should. If you got too irritated by Twin Peaks: The Return to go beyond the first two episodes you won't get through this (and it's one sixth of the running time). While I can promise that you'll pick up a good amount of the different threads on show with the particular characters I can't guarantee that some of the tying of those threads will always make sense. And, in case you wanted to sit back and enjoy a show of abstracted J-horror goodness you are going to get infuriated at the many slow passages necessary for catch-ups and development.

I said before that this would be a qualified recommendation and what I meant was that it has to include a warning about the violence. Some is surprising and brutal but suggested rather than shown but there is a lot of bloodletting and some seriously difficult viewing. If you've seen the French film Inside you'll have an idea but it goes beyond that. There are many moments in this short series where what is grossly unpleasant and what is deeply unsettling in concept are blended.

But, on the other hand, if you were enchanted by the invention and artistry of J-horror and miss it you will do well to dive in here. A constantly involving arc attacked by an expertly handled elastic timeline and still shorter than most Christopher Nolan movies (that do far less) is what's on offer here. You are allowed to cheat (wikipedia and Youtube will help you here) but my overall advice is to see them as close together as you can, perhaps one per day. That said, I'd advise against bingeing as the time-mixing can get pretty intense and you might need a breather between episodes to place yourself.

I can recall my disappointment at seeing Hideo Nakata's mooted return to J-horror in the 2013 The Complex. It was like a cover version of any of the knock offs that Ringu engendered. Not this.

Currently on Australian Netflix.

Review: PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

Three white collar guys chew the fat at a bar and notice that a hot girl is almost passing out on the seats across the room. One of them plays designated nice guy and approaches her to see if she needs help. In the rideshare he guides them to his place, his gentlemanly motives (assuming they were ever there) draining from his face. It gets to a certain point before she asks him point blank what he thinks he's doing, suddenly sober as a judge. That's all in the trailer so don't cry spoiler. But this is a spoiler-prone movie so there won't be much more plot detail from me.

And the thing to do with this elegantly structured urban fable is to sit back and let it in. A screenplay that runs on a need-to-know and keeps to it, peppered with a realistically uneven show of character wit and a long game that you know might not pay off the way you want is here to serve you. And serving it up is writer/director Emerald Fennell, displaying all the skill of but none of the constraints of her TV CV (The Crown and Killing Eve, to name two). I mentioned the trailer just before and am pleased to report that this piece provides much more than its commercial reveals (usually too much)

Cassandra is driven. Carrie Mulligan shows us someone who has thought so long and hard about something that it has made revenge her life's work. But this is not a Sergio Leone vengeance, it's one that contains stings for its own bearer. Mulligan who physicality can make her seem anything from forty to five years old let's us know this without it breaking to other characters. Of note her vocal performance, with a voice as worn-in as an old theatre, consolidates this as it can ward off evil as well as invite. Remember Cassandra could tell the future accurately but no one would believe her. This time she's seeking at least to confront with truth if not persuade by it. Some of her schemes border on Elizabethan levels of horror in their invention and can render her coolly frightening. So how does that gel with the rom com woven into the fabric here? See it and discover.

Something that might strike you in the pre-credit sequence is the use of cover versions. From a dub step Raining Men to what sounds like the Chronos Quartet's take on Toxic we're treated to a jukebox of interpretations. The one original happens ... well, see it and you'll know it. Until then we also see Cassandra as a male's cover version of what an available woman is by action and looks. Cover versions of guilt and remorse also line up and even Cassie herself in her parents' pastel musk stick decorated home looks like an ornament. We soon understand that this is how she is compelled to see the world, a thorny jungle of advantage in which the sweetest smelling fruit might well be fatal to the taste. Her ploys in bars and the numbered acts of her longer game show her as a master, well beyond the bawling efforts of karaoke try-hards, an artist who makes even the oldest chestnuts seem fresh and original.

I had to see this movie in a cinema. It looked good way back in February when I saw the trailer for it as I watched my last movie in a cinema for months upon months. I expected to see it surface on one of the streamers but no. Its release was teased a little recently with a peppering of screenings here and there but now it's out properly. This timing might well put it out of reach of the Academy which is a shame (for Mulligan's performance alone) as its smart approach to "me too" as well as the increasingly feeble "not all men" rejoinder remain timely. This is a tough idea in an accessible package, a glob of fibre smuggled into a sweet. Take a bite, take the whole thing. Now.