Seek and ye shall find

Japan's movie and televison industry is one of terrific over-acting. There's no simpler way to put it. It doesn't however, stop them from making f@#$%ing fantastic horror movies.

When I discovered "Juon - The Grudge 2" was playing at Cine Saison in Shibuya with english subtitles I had my butt on a train within hours. One of the great ironies of living in Japan, is that you can see more Japanese movies in Australia (being sub-titled and all) than in Japan.

For this reason I've not seen reputed masters of the genre such as "Ringu" (I am determined though, to see it before I see the U.S remake "The Ring") and the original theatre-released "Ju-on". Japanese videos are not subtitled in English (nor, one could argue, should they be... how many Aussie movies have you seen with Japanese sub-titles?) not all DVDs and the very rare cinema release, so its a right royal pain in the oshiri to get your fill of Japanese films.

Now, I am a self-confessed horror-movie fiend. I was 11 when I first taped "The Exorcist" from the TV (cut to shreds, I might add) and watched it every day for 2 months before my mother "accidentally" taped over it. At the time I thought, "What a Cow" but one doesn't really need to be enlightened to the fact that my behaviour was, ahem, a little strange (did someone say "you sick-arsed degenerate?" hmmm, must have been the demonic voices in my head...).

Over the last ten years though, authentically scary "I shat my pants right there in the theatre" films have been like raindrops on the Great Sandy Desert. The only ones that have really impressed me have been "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others".

Being a fan of ghost stories rather than blood 'n' guts, psycho killer slash 'em and trash 'ems, "Ju-On 2" did not disappoint. Low budget, every day "it could have been shot at your next-door neighbour's" scenery, creepy sound-effects and haunting imagery that got its shocks from what you didn't see or what was so subtle it was almost subliminal. The one scene (actually just one shot) that scared the bejeesus out of me, Matt missed completely.

We walked away from the cinema, with pants in-tact but quite jumpy. And if anyone has seen the movie, you may understand why I considered selling our kotatsu!