“I have no doubt if Ochiai had a bit more money to spend on better special effects, Ju-on: The Beginning of the End would’ve been a much improved film.”
by Nav Qateel
Yui Ikuno (Nozomi Sasaki) is an inexperienced teacher. Reluctantly, Yui becomes the homeroom teacher of a class of young kids at an elementary school. When one of the students, Toshio Saeki, is continually absent, she goes to his home to find out why. The teacher doesn’t realise that Toshio, along with his parents, died unpleasantly in that house, and unfortunately for her, anyone who visits becomes cursed.
- Ju-on: The Beginning of the End
- Directed by
Masayuki Ochiai - Cast
Nozomi Sasaki, Sho Aoyagi, Reina Triendl - Release Date
2014 - Nav’s Grade: C+
When The Grudge (Ju-on) first came out in 2002, I was one of the few who didn’t like it. I found nothing about it scary, and seeing a young boy covered in white makeup wearing nothing but his underwear, didn’t help much either.
Well, we’re now at the seventh rehashing of Ju-on, and I thought I might feel differently about the popular J-horror franchise, now that 12 years have passed. Apart from a few unintentional laugh-out-loud moments, Ju-on: The Beginning of the End, was quite an effective little scarer. There were a few special effects that almost ruined the film because the weren’t realistic in the slightest. And some of actions written for the characters were pretty dumb. The final scene was both good and bad but you can find that out for yourself.
*****
Like with most J-horrors, the acting was solid and even without a large budget, Japanese filmmakers tend to do a decent job. The only other film I’ve seen by director Masayuki Ochiai, was his 2008 horror Shutter. That wasn’t really a strong movie, but here Ochiai gets to demonstrate to us that he can indeed tell a good tale. Even if it is a convoluted one. I have no doubt if Ochiai had a bit more money to spend on better special effects, Ju-on: The Beginning of the End would’ve been a much improved film. As it was, though, it still managed to scrape by and give me a couple of scares, and that’s two more than I’d expected.
Ju-on: The Beginning of the End isn’t the best J-horror I’ve seen, but it’s certainly worth watching once.
