Ju-On

Experimenting with a way to review again!

The films are the Japanese original versions of The Grudge. The film came out in 2000, and if you want the story, check out IMDb on this link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330500/plotsummary

What I found interesting was the use of multiple narratives. This can be found in Rashomon by Aikira Kurosawa from 1950, but also in the old German expressionism films from the begining of the 1900's.

After watching myself tired of old German expressionism films, Russian montage films and Japanese films for my two courses, i thought this was going to be a relaxing film session, but no way...

One interesting thing I have noticed that also makes the similarities with the German expressionism films (which have influenced the history of horror films, as you can see up till modern day time) is the use of sounds and exaggerating (sound film became a part of film history during the German expressionism movement). An example is when the small child are making a cat sound when he opens his mouth. This is what the producer are using to scare us.

Sound, are the most important component for this film as of what I can interpret from the film. We have many examples of unnatural sound (like in above mentioned scene with the child and the cat sound), but also in the segment with Yuki, Yuki can hear sounds her friend Kanna can not. We have even an example of non-diegetic internal sound when the teacher (Kobayashi) is reading the mothers diary.

We can also find quite a few similarities with the other film too (in this case not Ju-On 2, but Ju-On: The Grudge II, which I have understood is not second film in the series), both in the plot where we can find for example the pregnant woman and the cat, but also in the way the film is made, with multiple narratives and we can start to assume that sound has a important role even in this film in the opening scene when the radio is not working.

Död Snö (Dead Snow)

Plot

A gang of eight Norwegian medical students decides to go for a trip to the mountains. The first evening a old man comes around and tells them the story of a Nazi party who occupied a town close by, but the villagers rebelled and the Nazis fled into the mountains. This is the

start of weird things, and when one of their friends don't show up, her boyfriend starts looking for her while the others stays at the cabin and starts the party. When one of the girls goes missing and they find the backpack of the first missing person, they start to get suspicious and this is when they start the battle against the zombies.

Opinion

Död Snö is an entertaining film, made by a small scale Norwegian company, with a relatively low budget. They have many of the classical horror film traits, but they have twisted them together into something new. They have taken any zombie film and mixed it with Wrong Turn, and the result became a real good horror film, even though the plot has a few holes, but as the effect of the zombies was so good, it doesn't really matter.

I would really recommend it, it is not scary scary, but it's really good when wanting a cozy evening with some not to brutal horror films in the autumn, when there is to cold to go outside anyway.

And if you liked this one, Norway has manged to produce yet another really good horror film. Snarveien. The film is following a couple who has been in Sweden buying booze, and can't get back home to Norway, so they take a short cut...

The others

Plot
Nicole Kidman, here as Grace Stewart, has with her children lives in a big house, waiting for her husband to come home from the war. Three people comes knocking on her door and asks for work and after a while her daughter starts to see a boy, whom none of the others can see, but after a while Grace starts to feel the presence of something non-human. When her husband then comes home, and then leaves, you start to get scared. Voices, sounds are heard. And who are the three people who came knocking on the door really?


Opinion
The story is not something completley new, it does not always look the same, but the basic concept is the same. An unbeliver who starts to believe after and encounter, the spooky house maids and gardners, the child who sees ghosts. All are elements that exists in other films, the thing that makes this film really good is light and sound.
As the kids are sensitive to light, big curtains are always drawn, and therefore, sound is not as it's supposed to be. Also there is a lot of whispering, which makes the atmosphere as there is secrets, things not everyone is allowed to hear. And as all the curtians is there, there is always dark, very rarelly light. Together with the whispering, and the lack of sound, the mice-en-scene gets rather interesting, you never know what lurks in the corners, what will jump out in the next dark hallway or whom will show up next. You hear sounds, but you don't know what's making them.

The film in all is an incredibly good film. The end is not suspected (at least not from me!) and it's frightening in a way impossible to tell.

An interesting thing would have been to watch the film without the soundtrack, but with the sound (e.g steps, cracks and so on, but without the music) as I think it would be real scary.