I guess with quality real estate at such a premium in Japan a few dozen deaths all related to one residence just isn’t as much of a deal-breaker as one would think. Ju-on: The Grudge is a theatrical release set a few years after the events of the original V-cinema Ju-on. The Saeki house now has new residents for the ghosts of Kayako and Toshio to terrorize and director Takashi Shimizu now has a nice big budget to work with. Does that necessarily mean this Ju-on is a huge improvement over its low-budget predecessor? Not really, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a quality horror flick in its own right with a few really good scares in its arsenal.

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Imprint was originally slated to be the 13th episode of season one of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series. The idea was to get some of the most influential horror directors of the past few decades and give them each the opportunity to make whatever kind of film they wanted with only 3 requirements: it must be a horror film, it must be shot within a 10 day schedule, and it must be 60 minutes long. Of course, with the cross-over success of Asian horror in recent years the series producers decided they had to have at least one Asian director involved in the project. They eventually decided on Takashi Miike based mostly on the cult success of his 1999 film, Audition. Miike isn’t one to ever turn any movie project down, especially not one as important as this so he jumped at the opportunity even though he doesn’t consider himself a horror director per se.

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Let me start by saying Ju-on 2 isn’t so much a true sequel of Ju-on as it is a fairly short final act to show the aftermath of everything that happened. In fact even though the movie is accurately listed at 70 minutes long, 30 minutes of that is cut right out of the end of the first movie. And since I wouldn’t recommend ever watching the second one before the first this feature is utterly pointless. Just think of this a 40 minute epilogue to the first one. That brings the total time of both halves combined to about 100 minutes, a perfectly reasonable running time for a feature film. So why is it split into two separate releases? I guess greed would be the obvious answer.

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Ju-on was the first of two V-Cinema releases directed by Takashi Shimizu centering around a haunted house and a couple of vengeful ghosts that were killed in such a horrific way they cause anyone that enters that house to drop dead in various creative ways. The success of these releases eventually led to two theatrical versions and two highly-successful Hollywood adaptations to date. Oddly enough, this little straight-to-video release shot on DV and now nearly impossible to find may have been the scariest of the bunch.

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Movies that follow common formulas tend to get a bad rap, fairly or unfairly. However, sometimes a movie is able to transcend its own clichés and deliver an entertaining experience regardless of how trite or overused its plot devices may be. Adrenaline Drive is one of these films, and Shinobu Yaguchi is one of those writer/directors that can infuse cute, amusing moments into any scene. While never a guy to come up with an amazing new concept or think outside of the box, he always delivers good movies with a unique charm that’s been his trademark throughout his 15+ year career.

Satoru Suzuki (Masanobu Ando) is a timid car rental employee who hates his job but can never seem to work up the courage to quit due to his passive nature. One day his boss distracts him while driving and he accidentally bumps the rear fender of a Jaguar in front of him. Unfortunately the owner of the car is a yakuza named Kuroiwa (Yutaka Matsushige). Suzuki’s boss hangs him out to dry and he’s is forced to go with Kuroiwa to work things out (aka to get shaken down). When they get to the yakuza den Suzuki tries to talk his way out of the debt but instead talks himself into a broken thumb. Just then there’s a big explosion. Suzuki wakes up later to find himself in a pile of rubble with all the yakuza dead except an unconscious Kuroiwa next to him. A nurse named Shizuko Sato (Hikari Ishida) helps him to an ambulance with Kuroiwa, whom at this point is semi-conscious and clutching a case full of yakuza cash. After a ridiculous chain of events possible only in a movie like this the ambulance ends up in the river while Suzuki and Sato end up with the case of blood-soaked cash. And they sure don’t plan on turning it in.

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