Tag Archives: Ju-On: The Grudge

Fright Club: Best Ghosts in Horror Movies

Ghosts! Maybe the first ever scary idea in all of history, the first thing to haunt our dreams. To give us the word haunt. Ghosts have been a staple of horror for as long as there was such a thing, so it was with great difficulty that we narrowed down our five favorite ghosts in horror movies.

We welcome director George Popov back to the podcast to run down the whole list. Keep up to date on his Sideworld documentary series and grab the cool merch we talk about by visiting sideworld.co.uk and following them on Twitter @Sideworld._UK, Facebook @SideworldUK and Instagram @sideworld_uk.

5. Santi in Devil’s Backbone (2001)

The Devil’s Backbone unravels a spectral mystery during Spain’s civil war. The son of a fallen comrade finds himself in an isolated orphanage that has its own troubles to deal with, now that the war is coming to a close and the facility’s staff sympathized with the wrong side. That leaves few resources to help him with a bully, a sadistic handyman, or the ghost of a little boy he keeps seeing.

Backbone is a slow burn as interested in atmosphere and character development as it is in the tragedy of a generation of war orphans. This is ripe ground for a haunted tale, and writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s achievement is both contextually beautiful – war, ghost stories, religion and communism being equally incomprehensible to a pack of lonely boys – and elegantly filmed.

Plus the ghost looks awesome. Del Toro would go on to create some of cinema’s more memorable creatures, and much of that genius was predicted in the singular image of a drowned boy, bloody water droplets floating about him, his insides as vivid as his out.

Touching, political, brutal, savvy, and deeply spooky, Backbone separates del Toro from the pack of horror filmmakers and predicts his own potential as a director of substance.

4. Jennett Humfrye in The Woman in Black (2012)

Director James Watkins was fresh off his underseen, wickedly frightening Eden Lake. Screenwriter Jane Goldman (working from Susan Hill’s novel) had recently written the films Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class, both of which are awesome. And star Daniel Radcliffe had done something or other that people remembered…

I’d have been worried that Radcliffe chose another supernatural adventure as his first big, post-Hogwarts adventure were it not for the filmmaking team putting the flick together. Goldman’s witty intelligence and Watkins’s sense of what scares us coalesce beautifully in this eerie little nightmare.

A remake of a beloved if rarely shown BBC film, the big screen version is a spooky blast of a ghost story. It makes savvy use of old haunted house tropes, updating them quite successfully, and its patient pace and slow reveal leads to more of a wallop than you usually find in such a gothic tale. Glimpses, movements, shadows—all are filmed to keep your eyes darting around the screen, your neck craned for a better look. It’s classic haunted house direction and misdirection laced with more modern scares.

3. Toshio in Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)

Yuya Ozeki was 5 years old when his melancholy, cherubic little face first appeared in Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge. He’d reprise his role as Toshio in Shimizu’s Japanese sequel as well as his English language remake of the original.

Ozeki’s presence onscreen is the perfect combination of adorable and terrifying. He sticks around this one hours, makes a mess, runs his little feet all over the place, sometimes meows.

The real gut punch of The Grudge series is that the ghosts are inescapable. You are doomed from the moment you set foot in Toshio and Kakayo’s home. It’s a way that the film perverts expectations of the gothic tale, and that corruption of something elegant is no more perfectly encapsulated than in the guide of little Toshio.

2. The Staff in The Others (2001)

Writer/director Alejandro Amenábar casts a spell that recalls The Innocents in his 2001 ghost story The Others. It’s 1945 on a small isle off Britain, and the brittle mistress of the house (Nicole Kidman) wakes screaming. She has reason to be weary. Her husband has still not returned from the war, her servants have up and vanished, and her two children, Anna and Nicholas, have a deathly photosensitivity: sunlight or bright light could kill them.

The new staff – Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan), Mr. Tuttle (Eric Sykes) and Lydia (Elaine Cassidy) – is here to help. Amenábar uses these three beautiful performances as a way to talk to Kidman’s harried mum as well as the audience. Flanagan, in particular, is brilliant.

What unspools is a beautifully constructed film using slow reveal techniques to upend traditional ghost story tropes, unveiling the mystery in a unique and moving way.

1. Delbert Grady in The Shining (1980)

Have we talked about this movie before? As is true with The Others, The Shining offers a smorgasbord of ghosts to choose from: Lloyd the bartender, the little Grady sisters, the old lady in the bathtub, the guy in the bear suit. But we settled on Grady because he may come across like the help, but don’t let that fool you. Grady’s the one in charge.

In one of the greatest single scenes in a horror film – and one that contains no murder at all – Delbert quietly clarifies the power structure at work for Mr. Torrence.

Stanley Kubrick’s camera is, per usual, meticulous in creating an atmosphere that mirrors this shift in power. Jack Nicholson’s transformation from smug to obedient is glorious. But it’s longtime character actor Philip Stone who nails the terrifying nuance that amounts to the most pivotal moment in Kubrick’s masterpiece.

It’s Asia – to the Extreme!

It’s coming!!

What’s coming? The coolest thing ever – a film festival Hope got to help program. And it is too nutty!

Asia Extreme opens at the Gateway Film Center next Thursday, August 8 and runs through the following Tuesday (8/13). Expect showers of blood, technology ghosts, regular ghosts, ass kicking, face kicking, face sliting, demonic cats, and vengeance. Oh, so much vengeance.

Some highlights include the Park Chan-wook’s full Vengeance Trilogy, in one location for one low price. See Oldboy as it was meant to be seen before the American version potentially ruins it. Truth be told, Spike Lee’s trailer looks pretty good. Still, the original’s a surefire weirdfest that may kill your soul just a little.

Another insane set of three: Kim Jee-Woon’s I Saw the Devil, Doomsday Book (in its Midwest premier) and A Tale of Two Sisters. A punishing director with tremendous visual flair and subversive humor, Jee-Woon work is meant to be enjoyed on a big screen.

Another two from Joon-ho Bong – the riveting drama of Mother (voted Best Foreign Language Film by the Central Ohio Film Critics Association in 2011), and the spectacular creature feature The Host – will keep you wildly entertained.

There’s more, including the Asian originals of Hollywood flicks you know and may love: Ringu, Shutter, Ju-On: The Grudge, and Pulse. Plus action and Sci-Fi to rip your flesh off, like the infamous Battle Royale, Election, BKO: Bangkok Knockout, and the fascinatingly titled This Girl Is Bad-Ass (in its Ohio premier, no less).

And more! Seriously, there are like another dozen movies I haven’t even mentioned! Who’s geeked?!

So, obviously, go. Do it! How could you not?!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQV7ejqpbPc

 

Thursday, August 8

7:30 PM             BLOOD C: THE LAST DARK (2012) – US Theatrical Premiere!

10:30 PM          BATTLE ROYALE (2000)

12:00 AM          HOUSE (1977)

Friday, August 9       

1:30 PM             MOTHER (2009)

Three films from legendary director Kim Jee-Woon:

4:30 PM             I SAW THE DEVIL (2010)

7:30 PM             DOOMSDAY BOOK (2012) – Midwest Premiere!

10:30 PM          A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (2003) – First Ohio Theatrical Screening!

12:00 AM          THE HOST (2006)

Saturday, August 10             

1:30 PM             RINGU (1998)

4:30 PM             JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2002)

7:30 PM             HORROR STORIES (2013) – US Theatrical Premiere!

10:30 PM          IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT (2013)

12:00 AM          THE SLIT MOUTHED WOMAN (2006)

Sunday, August 11  

The Vengeance Trilogy – First combined theatrical screening in Columbus! Patrons can see SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE, OLDBOY, and LADY VENGEANCE at normal prices or all three for $15!

1:30 PM             SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE (2002)

4:30 PM             OLDBOY (2003)

7:30 PM             LADY VENGEANCE (2006)

10:30 PM          THE RED SHOES (2006) – Columbus Premiere Screening!

Monday, August 12 

1:30 PM             PULSE (2001)

4:30 PM             SHUTTER (2004)

7:30 PM             BKO: BANGKOK KNOCKOUT (2010) – Ohio Premiere!

10:30 PM          THIS GIRL IS BAD-ASS!! (2012) – Ohio Premiere!

Tuesday, August 13              

1:30 PM             ELECTION (2005)

The Ghost School Trilogy – First combined screening in the Midwest! Patrons can see WHISPERING CORRIDORS, MEMENTO MORI, and WISHING STAIRS at normal prices or all three for $15!

4:30 PM             WHISPERING CORRIDORS (1998)

7:30 PM             MEMENTO MORI (1999)

10:30 PM          WISHING STAIRS (2003) – Closing Night Screening!