Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This film has been accused of plagiarism, which is absolutely the case. Overlong, unambitious, and frankly scare-less, this hodgepodge amalgamation of some of the more recognizable moments in other J-Horror flicks is basically a waste of time, albeit 75 minutes. Lifting far too obviously from the Ju-On series, and even tipping its hat to Kairo and Ringu, "Ju-Rei" is a cheap knock off. Unreasonably long periods of absolute inaction help stretch this to a (barely) feature-length runtime, including an infuriating THREE MINUTE sequence of a young woman hiding under a blanket. The camera opens scenes five to ten seconds before the action begins, and holds on them long after the action and actors have moved on to the next set piece. A single and mildly effective single shot of a darkened stair case in a child's school provides the film with one memorable and nicely done moment, but that's just not enough by far. Downright awful production value and a story as thin as a single strand of long black hair fill in the rest of the short runtime. If you're a fan of Asian horror, skip it. If you're not a fan, this could turn you off to the whole thing. Dreck.

*****************Slight Spoilers****************Ju-Rei: You said review to come. Just a few facts about this movie. It isn't exactly unique and can get boring at times but one thing about this movie that is different is that it plays backwards from chapter 16 recceding to chapter 1. It's not the best shot movie and it seems low budget so don't expect fantastic special effects but it was quite a interesting movie. It starts out with 4 girls practicing their dance moves and as one of the girls begins to leave a dark mysterious figure appears infront of her and all of the other girls run away. The whole movie is about some Myth or legend that explains about a dark figure that comes and gets you and anyone that comes in contact with the person that has encountered that dark figure will also meet the dark demise. They don't explain the whole story behind the myth but it was a slightly entertaining film that was rather mishandled.3 out of 5 Stars - Not For everyone but entertaining enough to attract some.

Chronically unoriginal and derivative Japanese horror could practically be guilty of plagiarism.Ju-Rei (The Uncanny) is yet another in the conveyor belt of Oriental horror movies which lept on the Ring bandwagon of 1998. The vast majority of them have benefited from the fact that Eastern horror is still a relative unknown here in the west, and the tricks used in Asian film-making are still fairly new here too.Indeed, fairly similar films like Dark Water and The Grudge have been blessed by the fact that they're still something of a novelty in this part of the word, because otherwise we'd see right through them much in the same way that teen slasher after teen slasher from Hollywood gets tiresome and repetitive.However, there comes a time when even *novelty* becomes contrived, and Ju-Rei is a superb illustration of this.The Uncanny (God knows what the name means) is a ghost story (Surprise surprise) where a shadowy female figure (*feigned shock*) appears and people die as a result (Where have we seen *that* before?).So, no prizes for a fresh and interesting story line. However, the one direction the plot has taken to elevate it above its peers is the story's told in reverse. We start at Chapter 10, then work our way back to 1. Sure, Memento did this already, but nonetheless it's new for Japanese horror, to my knowledge.The direction, though, lets this film down big time. Sure, the plot and narrative are totally unoriginal, but this could be countered by decent direction. Unfortunately, the mechanics of the movie are simply dire. Too often scenes' camera work is forcing the viewer, as opposed to the viewer feeling free. Good direction is subtle and when a scare or chill is threatening, it doesn't force you into submission. This should be a voluntary response, meaning you'll get more out of the upcoming shock. Add to this the number of times where something is laboured at a snail's pace, or a camera shot is held for a stupidly long period of time and you begin to get the feeling this one's being directed by an amateur.Indeed, the budget appears to be substantially low, with some pretty poor attempts at acting compounding it. Being an English speaker I cannot obviously detect the subtlety of Japanese, but I can tell that the portrayals are universally struggled and decidedly unnatural.As for the shocks, well there is one moment which I actually failed to see coming, so I got a little kick out of it, but otherwise this movie was a blatant copy of everything else which has been before.This was a Japanese horror by the numbers.Avoidable.

Just like a million ranch-house mommies think they can make food in their crock-pot that rivals that of real-life restaurants, Ju-Rie is an amateur, contrived thing that attempts to distill all the winning points of the films that obviously inspired it. Distill is a generous word, on second thought - this movie blatantly steals every device it uses from other successful J-Horror flicks, then proceeds to use those devices in shameful, uninspired ways. It's the movie equivalent of mugging someone and spending your stolen gains on cheap Mexican candy.Still, it's got a moment or two. They make use (I won't say EXCELLENT use) of the placement of creepy images in the periphery of a shot. so that you may or may not even notice them on any given viewing (a technique that's truly chilling used by skilled directors), which is nice at times. And really, if you want a non-scary breakdown of J-Horror formula points, this thing watches like an instruction manual.Three out of ten.