nick121235

This is almost gialloesque for some reason. It's honestly not well made, nowhere near as soon as Ringu, or even The Ring, but it has a type of charm to it.

This movie is almost not "j-horror", at least not in the same vein as Ringu or One Missed Call or Pulse; I generally think of j-horror as focusing on technology, while this is a much more traditional ghost story.

And to tell you the truth it isn't well made, in the sense that it clearly has a low budget and the editing is almost amateur, the lighting is also far too bright.

But all of these problems fall away when we focus on the atmosphere. Ju-On has a PHENOMENAL atmosphere, and almost feels like a giallo (or even Lynchian close to the end?) in its prioritization of atmosphere and images over plot coherence or good editing. There's just something about it that really shines through.

Just pure, I mean absolutely pure fantasy. No literally, this is how fantasy works. This is how our daydreams work. You can't ever obtain the object of desire or the fantasy is over and you have to start over. Hence the constant obstructions to the main characters obtaining the object of desire. And I mean CONSTANT obstructions. To the point that it is a satire of a soap opera, which is intentional. The soap opera is the perfect vehicle for that. It drags it on, and on... and on... and on...

Which is what we want. And which is why this movie is so good. It has the structure of fantasy, which is also the structure of plot.

And it absolutely plays off of a primal fantasy that every SINGLE gay man has in his youth. The straight guy best friend falling in love with him. Hell, I still fantasize about it all the time. I dunno, I just love this movie.