Ju-on: The Beginning of the End (2014) User Reviews

Formulaic but falls short of its predecessors

[ghulnet · 5/10 · 26 May 2019]

I've determined there appears to be two formulas to the Ju-On films. This sequel opts for the long drawn out build up psychological horror, utilising repeating themes such as Toshio's singing, and the circular drawn pattern to create suspense. These themes do create a new layer to the movies, which I believe is a modern addition to the films. The other formula is the no nonsense horror approach with graphic scenes and lots of jump scares.

While there are several good scares, Kayako in her human form drawing circles and the 'jaw rip' scene, I think this film focuses more on Toshio's ghost as a fear factor, and suffers from a lack of Kayako's (who in my opinion is the scariest part of the series, that said there's only so many times the producers can use the same thing to good effect, so with each new sequel comes a new challenge to remain fresh)

The film does attempt to go into a little more back story from Kayako in the form of a book with her writings in, giving insight into her mental state prior to her murder, which is a nice touch. There is also some more Toshio back story, so these are necessary additions I feel.

Overall some nice dispatch scenes, but for me ultimately could have used more scary Kayako scenes to be a true contender.

Good, suspenseful beginning sadly loses focus about 1/2 way through... Blu-ray: Okay A:8 V:7

[lathe-of-heaven · 5/10 · 31 August 2015]

Interesting... I just noticed that EVERY negative review so far (about 5) has been voted down and has a poor score. And, the ONLY relatively good review has a 10/10...? REALLY...??? I honestly wish people would stop doing that (sigh...)

Anyway... First, I should say that I have not seen the other Ju-on entries in this franchise so far. I know... start at the beginning, right...? Anyway, I pretty much have a good idea what the overall premise has been throughout the series of films, so I figured that since a FEW reviews weren't too bad about this one, it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and watch this one first since I happened to have it.

I will say that from what I know and from what I have read about the other Ju-on films, I'm guessing that people, unlike me, who HAVE seen the others will likely find this one somewhat repetitive in nature. But, since I HAVEN'T seen the others, I figured that there was a good chance that I would enjoy this one to some degree since with me the premise wouldn't have worn itself out yet. It honestly did start out fairly well right out of the gate with nice, drawn out suspenseful scenes and a decent atmosphere and it pretty much grabbed you right away. However, in my lowly and wretched opinion, I felt that after about 45 minutes or so, it basically was starting to repeat itself, and not in a terribly creative way. Just the basic 'Ju-on' premise that anyone who happens to walk into a cursed house gets snatched later. Annnnnnnnnnd... that was about it.... So quite honestly, right about that point in the movie, I really kind of lost interest.

There WERE some effective scares and individual scenes which were done quite well and directed in a way that was indeed scary. BUT... a handful of good scenes unfortunately do NOT necessarily make for a good film. My take on it, FWIW, is that perhaps if the director had changed up the look and feel of the film a bit more instead of having this continuously monotonous look, and if he had injected a LOT more 'Style' into the visuals, maybe that would have kept the audience's interest better and made up for the repetitive plot, I don't know...

So, a good start, definitely... but, ultimately I felt that it was way too monotonous in it's look and style. And the story never really seemed to go anywhere.

Sorry, but the film just wasn't really very interesting after a while, so I cannot really recommend it as having enough mood and style to carry it, which COULD have helped a lot considering the very simple nature of the story itself. I gave it a '5', which is a bit generous overall, but that's because I thought it started very well but sadly ran out of steam about half way through.

This is one of those cases where I would say, just read a good book instead...

The weakest of all the grudge movies

[atinder · 3/10 · 17 November 2014]

Now this is the 4th version of the same movie made in 20000

Ju-on-The Curse (2000) well that movie was really creepy, Ju-on-The Grudge (2002) this movie scared the hell out me, The Grudge (2004) was not as good as the other but at least it had a hint of suspense in the movie,Unlike this remake.

This movie was not scary or creepy, it was just really badly done, no atmosphere at all in any of scenes

There were some new stuff added into this movie however most of the movie was scene from scene remake with little change.

The movie opens like a found footage movie, only the opening scene , were 3 people go into house and then find something bad.

I liked that scene at the start, so from there i thought the movie was going good but I was really wrong, just movie just go worse as it went on.

When ghost appears, it was so bad, I thought the ghost The Grudge 3 (2009) was bad) this was even more silly.

I didn't not this movie at all, I didn't like how some of story changed and scene they remade did have same impact or any impact at all.

the acting was okay!

A horror turns into comedy.

[haikal_azri · 3/10 · 20 August 2014]

It's awful. Avoid it. I waste my money on this, definitely need a refund. It's so nothing in the beginning and super funny at the end. My friend sleep the whole movie and only wakes up when the whole cinema is laughing. Yes, we all laugh at the ghost/alien(or whatever that is). And did I tell you we were watching it at midnight. Yes, that boring. You might enjoy the comedy but only if you can bare yourself through the whole movie. Half of the audience walk out.

I always love Ju-on movies but this one is definitely a miss. The cast is OK but the directing, the plot, the ghost all wrong. Overall, you get the point.

As Dead-Eyed as Its Ghosts

[mrusty5 · 3/10 · 17 February 2015]

It is usually quite exciting when a new installment of your favourite horror films come out, but with Ju-On/The Grudge, knowing what to expect has become all too predictable. Takashi Shimizu's premise about a Japanese suburban house being haunted by its dead residents who consume all those who step in it has run out of steam and feels more dead than the iconic ghosts in the movie. While each previous installment of the series followed the same basic plot, each one did something unique with the characters.

Heck, the films White Ghost/Black Ghost were pretty good, showing what might happen with similar but different "grudges" that are unconnected to Kayako and Toshio. However, it seems Ju-On is taking a page out of Halloween's book - ditching any potential of being original with each new film and instead retracing its steps with a film reboot/extremely loose sequel. How original. And while Sadako 3D served as a flawed reintroduction to Ringu, Ju-On: The Beginning of the End is a drab, cheap, boring dull-fest that is more absurd and hilarious than scary.

The film takes several plots from previous Ju-On films and reworks them into the traditional, non-linear storyline we've come to know. A teacher visits the Saeki house after Toshio is absent from school, and a group of school girls venture into the house as part of a dare. As expected, the creepy and kooky Saeki family pay the intruders a visit and one by one, after some cheesy poltergeist activity, kill them off screen or in gory fashion.

As I said a lot of stuff from the past films are included - the creepy diary from the fourth film, the broken off jaw from the first, a group of girls going into the house and being driven crazy, identical death, etc. The acting is very sub-par and none of the characters develop beyond being anything more than idiots who are to be killed off. There is plenty of cheese in the film and downright hilarious moments that are meant to be scary. Cardboard boxes shudder and jump around, Toshio must've met Gozer at some point as one girl is dragged into a fridge to her doom, and one girl encounters her dead friends on the subway, one of whom has become a giant for some reason.

The differences in the mythos are extensive - the Saekis are now the Yanagas, Toshio is Takeo's biological son and implied in Kayako's diary to be something possibly supernatural, the house is completely different, and the sympathetic tragedy that I found with the ghosts has now completely gone to the sheer ridiculousness and sub-par acting of the cast. And who's idea was it to have Takeo nuke the cat in the microwave! Surprisingly, even the traditional "Kayako crawls down the stairs" scene is missing too.

The whole production of Ju-On: The Beginning of the End feels extremely cheap and lacks any creative thought or introduces new ideas beyond a clunky reboot. Very poor.

Despite having a weak plot, Ju-On 3 manages to nab a high score on the scare-o-meter.

[moviexclusive · 7/10 · 29 July 2014]

In recent years, we have experienced a fair bit of disappointments from the J-horror releases. From the unremarkable extensions of classics such as The Ring (1998), to the mundane new additions to the franchise of Ju- On (2003) which features the iconic pale white kid. Ju-On 3: The Beginning of the End, contrary to what the name suggests, is the seventh installment of the franchise of Ju-On. This is the first film that has no involvement from the series creator, Takashi Shimizu. Instead, a familiar name in Japanese horror film making, Masayuki Ochiai (director of Infection, 2006) takes over. Will J-Horror films ever come back with something equivalent to one of those we've seen in the golden era of J- Horror?

For those who are familiar with the Ju-On franchise, you may already know that it adopts a format where the narrative is being 'chopped up', going back and forth to tell a story. Hence it might frustrate the viewer a little, trying to keep up and link the dots. This time, the story focuses on Yui (Nozomi Sasaki), an elementary school teacher who will slowly uncover the true reason for one of her student's absence from school. She pays the family a visit at their house, only to unravel the tragedy that happened 10 years ago. The vengeful spirits are still out to haunt for the next victims – seems like anyone who enters the 'cursed house' will not come out unscathed.

The movie begins with a hand-held camera styled sequence, which closely follows the first group of people who discovered the body of a child being left to die in the summer heat. Brace yourself for the first 'boo' scare of the movie, which sets out the tone and atmosphere of the movie. As much as we humans have this tendency to be masochistic (i.e. it's so spooky but it's so good), the truth is we won't deliberately walk into an obvious trap/danger. Hence in that respect, you may find some sequences in the movie rather illogical. Nonetheless, the whole horror atmosphere was well maintained from beginning to end – giving you the chills and keeping you in good suspense. This was supported by the seamless use of horror tracks and sound effects, one of the hallmarks of Japanese horror movies.

Director Masayuki Ochiai takes a slightly different approach as Takashi Shimizu when it comes to the scares. Masayuki has a penchant to use more graphic scenes to create the shock and impact. While it does create an impression, the prolonged screen time of some of the grossly gruesome scenes numb the eyes. The converse of having less is more will probably work better in this aspect.

Nevertheless, this new addition to the Ju-On franchise is not too shabby a J-Horror. Though any may say that this still does not match up with the first theatrical release of Ju-On in 2003, Ju-On 3 has set another milestone for the Ju-On cult for giving it a more edgy and modern remake, redefining it for the new generation that have never encountered what Ju-On is. While many of the horror sequences have to do with daily activities, be glad that a lot of them are not the common experience in Singapore – hence it won't haunt you through those endless nights.

This was definitely not a bright moment in Japanese horror cinema...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 31 July 2019]

Present me with an Asian horror movie and I will immediately sit down and watch it. And being familiar with the "Ju-On" franchise, of course I will sit down to watch this Japanese horror movie, as I was given the chance to do so.

However, I must say that "Ju-on: Owari no hajimari" (aka "Ju-On: The Beginning of the End") was somewhat of a swing and a miss.

First of all, there was absolutely nothing scary anywhere to be found in this movie. Well, unless you are an Asian, of course, then you'll find the little white painted boy and his floor and ceiling crawling mom scary. But for a seasoned horror veteran as myself, nothing scary in this movie at all.

Secondly, the storyline was just rubbish. It kept jumping to and from various storylines and following different characters. Sure, it was interwoven, but it just had very little appeal, especially since none of the storylines were particularly interesting and had zero scary stuff in them.

It should be said that the acting in the movie was actually good, taking into consideration the fact that the actors and actresses had very little to work with in terms of a proper script.

All in all, "Ju-On: The Beginning of the End" was a less than mediocre foray into the "Ju-On" genre, and it was a weak movie in itself. My rating of the movie is a meager three out of ten stars.

Still scary, yet sillier this time around // instagram: moviesmaniax

[moviesmaniax · 7/10 · 31 August 2014]

Another scary flick in this long running Jap-horror series that seems to run out of new tricks this time around. The SCARE here is still scary and creepy, however it just feels too repetitive and we can see that it tarted to run out of any new ideas or scares here. Even they might have some new ideas here but in the end those scenes unfortunately just become laughable and make the film even less scarier and just become an embarrassment to this respected franchise. I have to admit I did laugh out loud in one of the scenes because of that. There are also some GORES here but nothing that shocking or that you haven't seen before from other horror films. Overall, this latest Ju-On film may have some classic scares here and there but in the end, the film is still a disappointing one in the series that try to bring in some new scares but ultimately resulting in becoming a laughable and forgettable one instead. >>C+<<

Horrible movie

[Mechagoji75 · 2/10 · 9 July 2015]

When I heard that there was a new ju on movie since white ghost and black ghost, I was so excited but when I got a call from my friend when he watched the movie after the film's release, that Takeo Saeki kills the cat by mircowaving it and kills his son with a knife instead of killing both in the bathtub. When I saw this, it was so laughable and so god awful, and badly made from the director himself also co writing the script with the producer who also produced Ju-On The Grudge (2002/2003), although I remember having the decision to download the film and edit the film from 90 mins down to 64 minutes so that it could be a better movie, that I wanted to focus it on the teacher not the student girls, my god, they were so annoying except the one who ends up getting pulled by either Toshio or Kayako. And how kayako is portrayed is so horrible, it doesn't take the integrity of the original movies including the American films itselves. And also the ending, I am not going to explain it, see it for yourselves, public, movie buffs or snobs, and the fans of the film series too, the final ending shots are really depressingly strange and more like a creepypasta of squidward's suicide where a long shot of squidward stares at you for long before he kills himself with a shotgun. So I don't recommend this movie to the fans but I can say it, give it a shot for the public and movie buffs and snobs. So final rating it's either a 0/10 or a 0 out of a freaking 1,000. God awful. Since Ju-On The Final is coming up soon, I saw the trailer and liked it but the final which made me said "that's going to far of a kuchisake onna curse inside on Kayako's body, weird. But I think I'm looking forward to the film soon.

A suspenseful reboot of a well known franchise packs some really good suspense and scares.

[kikitata · 9/10 · 14 August 2018]

While this might not be as good as some of its predecessors, it is a pretty decent reboot with great scares and an anachronistic plot.The fact that there are two POV's makes it seem a bit unique compared to a few horrors with a linear plot. But despite having such great suspense, atmosphere and a decent plot. It does also have its flaws. While I did like the sound effects that were used in this film, the film seemed to go way too extreme with some of them and made them a bit too loud.

Now I'm going to put my thoughts and stars out of ten put into the work they made.

Suspense - 9.4/10 = The suspense on the film manages to catch a high score as it makes the film more better as we get further onto it. It could do a little bit more improvements, but overall I think the suspense in this film would probably be one of the best I've seen in films I've watched.

Plot - 7.4/10 = While it was a bit repetive with a few flaws to the plot. It still is a very decent story line that supports the suspense further on. The anachronism order is what makes the plot even more decent. Although, I do wish that it could've branched out more in terms of narrative and ideas, because some plot points had potential, but eventually became slightly stale further on. Still doesn't mean it wasn't bearable though.

Sound Effects - 8.7/10 = The sound effects that are used in the film can be a bit loud for your ears sometimes, but are very unique in their own ways. The film perfectly deforms simple sounds into what sounds horrifying and scary.

To conclude this review: This film is not as strong as some Ju On movies, in my opinion, but does have some features that do make it stand out from most movies in the franchise - such as the color palette of the film being slightly dull (in a good way from my view but some will disagree), and instead of it being quiet, it was kinda loud (and no, I don't mean loud as in there's multiple jumpscares, I mean loud in terms of the sound effects) although some others will also disagree with me on this.

My overall rating for this film, will be 9/10.

(Edited in 14th April 2020 at 6:58 PM GMT - extension of plot section, some word changes, and a final consensus before rating)

Good follow-up after the somewhat disappointing 2009 movies

[sofianXmXh · 7/10 · 27 April 2016]

I watched this movie last night right after I watched Ju-on: Black Ghost (2009), which was rather disappointing. I had seen its co-installment, Ju-On: White Ghost (2009) the night before, which was better in terms of scares and atmosphere as well as being more cohesive, still, Black Ghost wasn't a bad effort.

This movie felt like a huge improvement from the previous two installments, which weren't all too bad, but they could have been scarier. I did like that they were shorter than most movies, clocking in at only 60 minutes. This one picks up the pace again that is very similar to Ju-on: The Grudge (2002).

Now, this is not a sequel to Ju-on: The Grudge 2 (2003), so there are certain reviewers incorrectly referring to this movie as Ju-on 3. This is a reboot... an American one is in the works as well. I, for one, really like the non-linear storyline and I never get bored of it. And this is coming from someone who has seen 5 Ju-on movies this week alone (sixth one will be Ju-on: The Final Curse (2015)).

The scares, or the story in general now, has been used in different variations overtime, so it has gotten pretty repetitive now up to the point where I wasn't scared but rather impressed by the changes they made in this movie (talking about the last few scenes here). The very ending was funny and pretty disturbing at the same time.

All in all, I'd recommend this movie to everyone who loves the Ju-on series, it will not be disappointing. Let's see what the sequel, Ju-on: The Final Curse has in store for us.

A good one time watch,why such low ratings?

[suvechhabose · 10/10 · 10 July 2020]

I loved it. Whats not to like? Don't expect alot,its a simple story of a teacher and her student

Its from ju-on franchise ,which means basic story plot should have to be the same,just accept it ,but if you want to watch something simple and horror you are in for a treat. Some scenes are quite discomforting and the best part is in a simple movie like this ,you would not have expected those.So believe me Set your bar low and then watch it.

Horror sequences were good,not too scary or gory,but enough thrilling to keep you engaged.All of them cast members acted beautifuly specialy the main protagonist,she was charming.The cinematography and background music were okay, overall a pretty solid movie for a one time watch.

And yes you can make Nozomi sasaki stand in a 2 hour movie with some expressions on her face, i m ready to watch it. No one can deny . She's just born cute