Thursday, April 9, 2009

A new director and star are brought in for "Ju-On: Shiroi Roujo"

by Chris MaGee

It seems like Takashi Shimizu's "Ju-On" films are following in the footsteps of so many other successful horror franchises like "Friday the 13th" and "Saw" by coming out with yet another sequel. "Ju-on: Shiroi Roujo" or "The Grudge: White Spinster" follows a high school girl, played by 19-year-old tarento Akina Minami (above left), who has a special sensitivity to supernatural phenomena and whose childhood friend was murdered in elementary school. Not much else is known of the plot yet, but what is known is that Shimizu isn't returning as the film's director or writer as he had done with first two "Ju-On" films. Over a dozen directors were apparently considered for the project before Ryota Miyake was picked to take the helm. Miyake previously directed episodes of the FujiTV horror series "Honto ni atta kowai hanashi".

Now the main question is does the world need another "Ju-On" film? Not being a horror movie aficionado I'm probably not the best person to answer that. I guess the proof will be in the end product which will be released in Japanese theatres in June. Until then have at it in the comments about whether you're scared in an "Oh my god, that ghost girl's gonna get me!" way about this new film in the series or you're just scared that it's going to be bad.

Thanks to Tokyograph for the details on this.

1 comment:

Bob Turnbull said...

There's also the third American Grudge film coming out in May I believe - I had been looking forward to it, but just noticed it's only being produced by Shimizu. It's being directed by Toby Wilkins who did "Splinter".

I don't have any opinion on Wilkins, but the Grudge films were successful (at least for me) because of Shimizu's handling of the creeping dread. It's not necessarily the stories that I want to see continue on, it's more atmospheric horror films that I want to see...

I will be curious what else Shimizu does.