The Grudge (2004) – VERY Scary Apartment Scene Will Make You Sleep With The Lights On! (HD)

NOTE: Yes, this is a re-print of an article originally published on November 26, 2012. Why a re-run, you ask? Due to missing over a week of postings in late May (got kicked in the ass by pneumonia and the unexpected death of a good friend) things got pretty sparse here as everything else went out the window at the time …so I’m filling them in (and back-dating them for the days we were on the disabled list) in with cool stuff and postings you may have missed the first time they were printed, because I hadn’t fully understood how to publicize properly back then.. Enjoy.

HORROR BOOM

When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage…

It’s almost impossible to pick the ten–hell, I’d have to really apply myself to get it down to twenty– scariest scenes or moments from the Ju-On (AKA The Grudge) series, let alone the scariest. OK, that’d be the stair-crawl,  but you get the idea. However, I’m pretty sure that this scene would probably make the top ten. Full of creepy moments (seeing Toshio pass by the elevator on EVERY goddamn floor, seeing your husband through the peephole and opening the door to the sight of an empty hall), Shimizu saves the best scare in the scene for last.

We doubt it’s necessary to sell you on Asian horror knowing exactly how to scare you and stand out from 90% of US horror films, but the idea of not even being safe in your own (formerly) cozy warm bed, with…

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The Grudge (2004) – VERY Scary Apartment Scene Will Make You Sleep With The Lights On! (HD)

When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage…

It’s almost impossible to pick the ten–hell, I’d have to really apply myself to get it down to twenty– scariest scenes or moments from the Ju-On (AKA The Grudge) series, let alone the scariest. OK, that’d be the stair-crawl,  but you get the idea. However, I’m pretty sure that this scene would probably make the top ten. Full of creepy moments (seeing Toshio pass by the elevator on EVERY goddamn floor, seeing your husband through the peephole and opening the door to the sight of an empty hall), Shimizu saves the best scare in the scene for last.

We doubt it’s necessary to sell you on Asian horror knowing exactly how to scare you and stand out from 90% of US horror films, but the idea of not even being safe in your own (formerly) cozy warm bed, with the covers pulled up to your chin? If that isn’t the stuff of nightmares, we don’t know what is.

Horror Boom Halloween Treat – Giant Ju-On Gallery, Featuring Kayako Saeki!

Ok! So here’s the second Halloween 2012 treat (three more to come).  I promised another Ju-On  gallery, and this time– y’know, Halloween Treats and all– I’m going to focus on Kayako. It also seems fitting,  since on Halloween 2004, I was first introduced to the series and to Kayako (and her family) when my mom and I went to see the movie The Grudge in the theater (in a packed house, closer to the screen than was optimal when seeing a really scary movie). By thirty minutes in, we were holding hands!

Looks like lots of people have been doing searches and landing here because they want to dress like her for Halloween. Maybe this will help you out with the make-up. There’s a couple of make-up tutorials on You Tube but it seems as though most of them don’t understand Samara from The Ring and Kayako from The Grudge/Ju-on are two different characters. Here’s the closest I got, just taking photos to use on T-shirts I’d be selling. I wanted a recognizable image yet needed to do my own to avoid copyright infringement. Well,  I gave it a shot, anyway!

Ok, I lied, I bleached out color a little bit, but trust me, I used a TON of make-up.
©2011 D.D. Reinert/Horror Boom

Oh, and please note I’m going to be adding to it over the next 48 hours until it is juuuuuust right. I have over 100 images but need to start sleeping before dawn breaks. It can’t be healthy for my system to keep the sleep-cycle of an undead crack whore, so I’m making an effort to get in bed and at least TRY to fall asleep before I hear birds chirping outside. Keep checking back,  as you’ll keep finding plenty of new, scary, Ju-On photos and content all the way up to Halloween night!

Overall, I really made this as a tribute to her character. I even added a little behind-the-scenes stuff on the multi-talented Takako Fuji, who has played Kayako six times in full-length features, in addition to the two short films. As far as I’m considered, The Grudge 3 doesn’t even count as part of the series, since she didn’t play Kayako in it; in fact she wisely turned it down. I’ve read a few recent interviews with Fuji-San (they needed a translator) which I purposely sought out to remind myself that the Ju-on series were only movies,  and Kayako doesn’t really exist.   Fuji-San said that even though she has a strong background in modern dance, her back would always hurt for a day or so after each time she filmed a staircase-crawl (that makes my back hurt just thinking about it), that she’s a smoker who would take cigarette breaks in costume as Kayako which would make anyone walking by seeing her start to laugh, that she sometimes gets asked to “do” Kayako at parties (she always does), but most of all, kept apologizing “for all the nightmares!”  That helped… sort of…  a bit… a little, tiny bit, anyway.

So here’s that gallery, in some different formats to mix it up. She remains one of the most frightening female horror icons of all time, even probably up in the top five for me.

The above and below are shots where the lighting is dim, but what you CAN see is clearly Kayako,  just enough to know who you’re looking at and to scare the shit out of you.

mirror mirror, on the wall, who’s the scariest one of all?

Fuck!

You’re not even safe under your own bed sheets…

This is from the very first Ju-On TV movie, and the first time I’ve ever let out a shriek watching something on my TV in my own home. During daylight, no less. Almost had a goddamn heart attack when Kayako quietly said, “Kobayashi?” held still for a long moment, then suddenly SWOOPED down close to his face. And that was the last time we (or anyone) ever saw Kobayashi Dear…

Here’s some really frightening PR shots taken…

When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage…

…a curse is born.

…The curse gathers in that place of death.

 

Those who encounter it…

…will be consumed by its fury.

More quotes from this interview later on.

 

More coming soon; I’ve now looked at the maximum amount of depictions of Kayako (after dark) that I can without risking nightmares.  If you have requests for photos/pics, please put them in the comments below and I will do my best to accommodate them!

Summer Heat Wave? Get Your Chills On With Ju-On Gallery #2

Well, my cough is almost gone, but I have a strange, unpleasant style of hangover from being on over-the-counter cold/cough medicine for over a week. I felt more or less normal when I took it the first week (probably because I made sure it didn’t have any of the crystal meth ingredients ending in “phrine” in it before I put it in my body the first time).  I took two of the tablets (supposed to take one of these doses every 4 hours) on our way to go see Magic Joe Manganiello  Magic Mike *,  and during the closing credits of the movie I suddenly began to feel very weird and nervous.*  Then I discovered (in the tiniest print ever) on the instructions the words do NOT use for more than seven days continuously. Since I was on day 8 or 9, that explained that. Well, shit. I immediately ‘discontinued’ the cold/flu remedy (also per the instructions). Since I stopped about 36 hours ago, I’ve felt better flu-wise (other than a nagging, dull rebound headache from all the Tylenol), but all cloudy and fuzzy, and not the good kind of dreamy-cloudy that seeing the routines in Magic Mike (which was definitely not caused by any kind of chemical unless you count hormones) and mentally clumsy, clunky, and foggy. I was barely able to follow the plot of the regular Thursday new installment of the free web comic Crossed:Wish You Were Here;  the weekly series is very twisted, but not overly-complicated.

…it’s been pretty warm out lately, and just looking at many of these may give someone the illusion of the temperature dropping. I didn’t know it was possible to get goosebumps in 80 degree heat, but apparently, that’s where Takashi Shimizu and of course, Ms. Takako Fuji come in to lend a hand!

I’m surprised I even pulled this intro together. My IQ took a significant drop. I just realized I kept meaning to watch the two sneak preview clips on HBO.com for this Sunday’s True Blood, but never quite screwed two brain cells together long enough to do it.  Hooked as I am, that never happened before (that I can recall, my memory is worse than usual, too). When I tried to write something more complicated than a retweet. I could barely finish my sentences in my own head. I have a couple reviews of movies that turned out to be terrible almost ready to “press”***, but I don’t want to post two negative reviews in a row. So until my slow-witted head clears up, I have another Ju-On gallery I put together.

Now would be a good time to GTFO, Kobayashi…

I don’t own the rights to any of the stills from the Japanese movies themselves, I just think they’re amazing …and creepy as shit. Also, it’s been pretty warm out lately, and just looking at many of these may give someone the illusion of the temperature dropping. I didn’t know it was possible to get goosebumps in 80 degree heat, but apparently, that’s where Takashi Shimizu and of course, Ms. Takako Fuji come in to lend a hand!

From the original TV movie, aired in Japan in 2000.

This time, I also included some very unsettling images from the two Ju-On movies: Ju-on: Shiroi rôjo  (The Grude: Old Lady in White) and Ju-on: Kuroi shôjo  (The Grudge: Black Ghost).   These were filmed in 2009, and weren’t released in the US until 2011 as a package deal: Ju-On: White Ghost/Black Ghost. They aren’t direct sequels, and only one member of the Saeki family makes an appearance, but they definitely take place in the same universe as the rest of the Ju-On series.  Kayako may not show up (unless you count a very distinctive croak/death rattle, but I still found both movies (especially the first) badly frightening. Oh, and at some unknown point, I learned how to mimic the Kayako ‘death rattle’ perfectly. Not in time to scare anyone else with it, just enough to give myself a nightmare that I was imitating the noise while surfing the net, stopped, then heard it coming from behind me. Then I bolted awake! I fell back to sleep in less than a minute …but I think it says a lot about the staying power and effectiveness of a true horror movie when you get a nightmare based on it after you haven’t even watched it in months. That’s during cheerful daylight, with my husband reading the paper in the next room. And I jumped …then decided I was sitting much too close to the TV.

From the “Black Ghost” second half of the recent Ju-on: White Ghost/Black Ghost (2009)

One of Toshio’s two “cameos” from Ju-On: WGBG (2009)

The first of several genuine jump scares from Ju-On: Old Lady in White (2009)

From the English version (I know, duh) 2004

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