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Based on a two-part TV movie that aired in Japan in 2000 and already something of a sensation with a sequel and a Sam Raimi remake in the pipeline, The Grudge (Ju-On) is touted as the successor to the Ring series. A creepy story about curses, murders, and things that go bump (very loudly) in the night, it's set in a anonymous looking suburban house where anyone who crosses the threshold is pursued by the evil spirits of the previous tenants.

How frightening is a little boy in white body paint and a glum expression who hides underneath restaurant tables? Frightening enough to stop you from laughing? Probably not. That's the chief problem facing writer-director Takashi Shimizu, as he unleashes wide-eyed kiddie spirit Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) and cultivates some very silly scares. One woman is plagued by a phantom phone caller who groans like a blocked drain, another girl finds a ghostly hand helping her wash her hair in the shower. It's hardly the kind of stuff that will make you wet the bed.

"DECIDEDLY UNEVEN... BUT OCCASIONALLY SCARY"

It doesn't help that the film is broken up into segments, each following a different character connected to the haunted building. Playing like a compilation of barely related shock sequences, Ju-On is decidedly uneven. When it works, though, it produces some hair-raising scares: a trio of zombified schoolgirls; CCTV footage of a hapless security guard meeting his maker; or the woman who wakes up to find her bed inexplicably surrounded by 20 mewing black cats.

Yet, while Ring left us with a terrifying vision of the world on the brink of a supernatural apocalypse, The Grudge feels more like a bedtime ghost story told around the campfire. It's hard to take seriously, but in the darkness it's occasionally scary. As long as nobody laughs.

In Japanese with English subtitles.