Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? If you like horror films.
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? Yes.
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 91 minutes (1.5 hours)
“Ju On 3: The Beginning Of The End” is a horror film that explores the origins of a boy ghost and the generations of terror that he has inflicted upon the hapless visitors to his house. It is the seventh film in the “Ju On” franchise. It stars Nozomi Sasaki (Yui Ikuno), Kai Kobayashi (Toshio Saeki), Sho Aoyagi (Naoto Miyakoshi), and Reina Triendl (Nanami).
“Ju On 3” is the quintessential Japanese horror film which lingers in your mind long after you’ve left the cinema. The most innocuous, everyday things now become touch points for the frightening moments of the film, simply because the ghosts have the most human of motivations.
So what makes “Ju On 3” worth watching?
The psychological horror
The best horror is the one that you don’t see, the one that leaves your imagination to customise each moment of fear to make your hair stand. And Ju On 3 has this in spades – very often, you don’t see the ghost until the very end of the scene, and even then for only a short few seconds. It makes you want to draw your limbs a little closer to yourself, just in case.
Interesting back story
Toshio, the ghost that links the “Ju On” franchise together, has his story full fleshed out in this film. He spends half of his screen time as a human, which serves to illustrate the tale goes towards the tragic story of Toshio. Make no mistake though – this doesn’t lessen the horror at all. If anything, it only serves to increase it, because you now know just how depraved the ghost is.
Twist ending
I won’t spoil it for you here, but the twist in the climax was quite ingenious and horrific in its execution. It also helped to avoid what would have been the expected climax of the movie, and the sheer surprise of it all ensures that you will go home with that image embedded in your mind.
Nevertheless, “Ju On 3” had some areas it was lacking in.
The story is hard to follow
As with previous instalments, “Ju On 3” is told through several vignettes, and it isn’t always clear what the chronological order is. In addition, each vignette will jump between time periods, sometimes in the same scene. And the time periods aren’t very different, visually, from each other. For the first half of the movie, you’ll probably be lost among everything that’s happening.
Toshio is not scary any more
Call it overexposure, but Toshio (the boy ghost) is such a recognisable figure in any “Ju On” movie that he ceases to really terrorise you. You are expecting him to pop out of nowhere, and the sheer ubiquitousness of his image in real life just make him another character with face paint on. It’s not the fault of the actor (Kai Kobayashi) in any way, just an unfortunate consequence of the many “Ju On” posters that have been made.
The back story doesn’t create sympathy
In most Asian horror films, the ghost has a sympathetic back story, which makes it all the more horrifying because you realise you might not have acted very differently from the ghost. In this case, however, the ghosts’ motivations are understandable – but they’re also so warped that there’s no longer a sense of relatability to them any more. They’re just crazy.
“Ju On 3: The Beginning Of The End” certainly delivers on the scares, using a mix of camera techniques, sound, psychological horror, and the sense of unease and discomfort that permeates the film. It provides different levels of horror to strike fear in you from multiple angles, and that is the greatest strength of this horror film. Definitely worth your time if you like scary movies.
“Ju On 3: The Beginning Of The End” opens in cinemas 24 July, 2014 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo Movies Singapore.
Leave a Reply