Netflix’s prequel series JU-ON: Origins offers a fresh perspective of the traditional and long-running Japanese horror series that doesn’t require much knowledge of the extensive franchise.

It does, however, require a myriad of content warnings, including for sexual assault and child abuse.

This review covers the first three episodes of the season. Our more spoiler-filled review of the last half will post over at Queer.Horror.Movies on release.

The following is relatively spoiler-free…

TERRY

Ju-On is one of the most popular and long-running Japanese horror franchises that’s found success outside of Japan and across the world. From the freaky imagery and the bizarre use of sound effects such as kids mewing like a cat or ghostly pale women who croak in that broken throat gurgle way, it has left a lasting impression. What started in 1998 as a pair of short films Katasumi and 4444444444 has become a worldwide phenomenon, so the fact that Netflix now has an origin series shouldn’t be a surprise.

So here we are, Joe: digging into JU-ON: Origins, a show that’s about the “true” case that inspired the movie franchise. And as the opening dialogue tells us, it all originated from one house…“however, the real events were far more frightening,” the first episode tells us as we’re transported back to 1988 and introduced to our main characters.

There’s Yasuo Odajima (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), a paranormal investigator who’s singularly interested in locating a peculiar house that has seemingly affected anyone who has entered it. His latest subject is Haruka Honjo (Yuina Kuroshima), an up-and-coming actress who’s recorded childlike footsteps running through her apartment at night, as well as a gurgling croaking sound. Her boyfriend Tetsuya Fukazawa (Kai Inowaki) wants to marry her and while scouting wedding houses he apparently stumbled across the mysterious home. And ever since then, “he’s been acting strangely,” Haruka tells Yasuo.

Whatever he found in the home has followed him home.

Meanwhile we also follow transfer student Kiyomi Kawai (Ririka) whose verbally abusive mother Mina (Izumi Matsuoka) berates her for seducing her father, Mina’s husband, and for attracting the attention of teachers at her last school. Slut shaming and victim blaming abound. And it’s only about to get worse as Kiyomi makes two new “friends” named Yoshie Minakami (Nana Owada) and Mai Hyodo (Hitomi Hazuki). Mai and Yoshie tell Kiyomi about the Cat Mansion, an empty house that seems to attract cats and when the three of them go visit with a high school boy named Yudai Katsuragi (Kohki Osamura), the two girls hold Kiyomi down and photograph her while Yudai rapes her.

Intercut between these scenes is a man driving in a car with a little girl who, when she asks to go home, he beats viciously. And through a news program, we learn that this six-year-old girl has been missing for a week and that there might be a connection to the disappearance of an eleven-year-old girl who went missing earlier.

JU-ON: Origins is dark, Joe.

I wasn’t quite sure what iteration of Ju-on we’d be getting here. Like Ringu, Ju-on has seen many permutations through its long-running franchise that can range from creepy (Ju-on: The Curse (2000)) to the jump-scare heavy (Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003) to silly (Sadako vs. Kayako (2016), and that’s not even taking into consideration the American remakes. But if the first three episodes of JU-ON: Origins are any indication, this is a deadly serious and dark telling of events that would, in this cinematic universe, inspire the original films.

I wasn’t prepared for the first episode to end on a vicious rape or to include scenes (filmed off-screen, thankfully) of a man beating a six-year-old girl. But none of these stories and characters are given much in the way of a hopeful future. It also doesn’t feel beholden to the confusing mythology of the film franchise as it bases its storytelling in the late 80s and early 90s. So far we’ve seen some of the Ju-On mainstays, such as characters like Mai mewing like a cat (cats, in general, focus heavily in the first few episodes). Of course there’s the creepy house where the curse originates and there’s a heavy focus on the horrible things people can do to each other, particularly against women and children. My guess so far is that we’re going to see the cyclical nature of violence and how trauma continues to afflict those affected.

The acting is uniformly great even though it sometimes feels like the story wants to keep us at arms length. At only 30 minutes per episode--something I’m actually happy about, considering the content--it doesn’t really give us much time to sit with the characters and the situations they find themselves in. In particular, the nonchalant way the high schoolers acted after Kiyomi’s rape bothered me and I wasn’t quite sure what was happening with Kiyomi herself after she locked herself in the cabinet. From child abuse to victim blaming to rape, I have to say I wasn’t prepared for the story that writers Hiroshi Takahashi (Ringu) and Taka Ichise (Ju-On: The Curse) were interested in telling.

Beneath all of the croaky ghosts and mewling kids, Ju-On has always been about trauma and pain leaving a stain that can affect those who come in contact with it, so it only makes sense that this “origins” story would take the darkness to the extreme, but good god. This is bleak. While the series is infamously known for telling stories out of order and time, the first three episodes seem to be told mostly in order, even as the story jumps to 1994 to show how the trauma has affected the survivors.

So far it has my attention and I’m curious to see how it all comes together, but I’m curious what you think, Joe. What’s your connection to the Ju-On or The Grudge series? Were you prepared for the content-warning filled first few episodes? What did you make of the jump in time to 1994/1995 as we see our characters dealing with the horrors they discovered in 1988? And are you as intrigued with where the show is going as I am?

JOE

The Grudge is a bit of an odd beast, isn’t it, Terry? I’m not well-versed in the original Japanese run of films. My point of entry - like a lot of North Americans, I imagine - was the Sarah Michelle Gellar remake back in ‘04. I have caught Sadako vs Kayako (I am not a fan) and I did kinda enjoy this year’s Nicolas Pesce side-quel, which - judging from its F Cinemascore - puts me in the minority.

So going into this origin series, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ll confess that I was hesitant about a serialized show, if only because the films tend to work best as bite-sized time-jumping vignettes. Now that we’re half way through the season, I think JU-ON: Origins has made the right call by following a few recurring characters, introducing a few to be killed off (standard horror fare) and jumping time ahead whenever the story needs to advance.

Like you, I was taken off guard by the matter-of-fact violence and the sadistic mean streak that runs through the episodes. I mentioned to you offline that perhaps North American horror, which tends to play it safe (particularly horror that involves children), has made me much more sensitive. Thus far, I’ve found the depravity of the violence in JU-ON: Origins to be extremely uncomfortable and hard to watch. You definitely hit the nail on the head that it’s almost better that the episodes are shorter; I don’t think that this would be palatable at a full hour.

I think it is the seriousness that makes the violence feel stronger. We’ve seen domestic and child abuse before and we’ve seen (sadly) plenty of rape in horror, but as you mentioned Ju-On: Origins has a detached observant feel that keeps its audience at a distance. As viewers, we’re complicit in observing these horrific events, but the show seems intent on not encouraging any significant emotional investment in its characters (at least thus far).

I haven’t fully connected with The Grudge films because they tend to place scares and time-jump shenanigans over their characters and while this Netflix series isn’t quite guilty of doing that, it’s not far off. Take, for example, Haruka: we know that Haruka grieves the loss of Tetsuya when he inevitably succumbs to what I affectionately refer to as “Grudge-face”, but aside from that, we barely know a thing about her. Even when we jump forward six years for episode three, Haruka seems stuck in place (still working in TV, still seemingly living in the same house, still sad...but that’s all we know about her). The result of not knowing these characters is that when we see violence inflicted upon them, all that lingers is the violence.

Add to this the fact that it’s almost entirely domestic - violence against women and children, inside the home and using domestic items like rotary phones. It feels very personal, even...maternal? The grudge in this series, thus far, isn’t supernatural; it’s the effect of domestic trauma and how that ripples out across the years to afflict individuals who come into contact with it.

That’s a fascinating premise, particularly if that’s truly where we’re headed, as the time jump to 1994 & 1995 in episode three suggests. Kiyomi is now a wife and mother stuck in her own cycle of abuse, seemingly still impacted by her encounter in the dark house six years before. There’s also the man who beat (and I think murdered) the six year-old in episode one; he’s referenced in the closing scene as M (a nod to the Fritz Lang film of the same name perhaps?) who clearly also has ties to the house that Odajima hopes to exploit.

Terry, my hope is that as we enter the back half of the season, we get to dive deeper into these ideas and these characters. My concern, based on these first three episodes, is that it’ll just be a rinse-lather-repeat of what we’ve already seen. The introduction of the Masakis, a pregnant woman cheating on her partner with Nobu, the current owner of the cursed house, worryingly suggests we’re going to get the latter: another variation on the same violent domestic abuse story that we’ve already had three episodes of.

Prove me wrong, JU-ON: Origins! We’ll find out soon enough when we jump back over to QueerHorrorMovies to tackle the remaining three episodes.