Cursed (Japanese 2004)

Title - Cursed
Language - Japanese
Genre - Horror, J horror, ghost

Ryoko has been sent, instead of her boss to help the transition of a small convenience store that is joining the ranks a of corporate chain store but almost as soon as she arrives she begins to think that something is wrong.  Nao, the daytime casher seems normal enough but when the store managers appear, accusing her of being late for the appointment Ryoko is confused, she’s convinced that she is there in plenty of time, the appointment is for two O'clock but when she checks it’s 4.30.  In the meeting with Mr & mrs Kitura, Ryoko is concerned by their reaction to the new of her boss’ accident, not only do they know that he has lost his legs but they seem very happy about it.

Whilst Ryoko is taking the shops inventory there are a few strange occurrences.  There is the one customer who stands reading the magazines, his face is totally covered by the hood of his parka jacket.  There are strange sounds coming from different rooms and eyes watching them, and crows flying into the windows as well as the owners strange behavior to contend with.

Outside of the store some of their customers are coming to grizzley ends.  

When the man in the Parka attacks Nao and then does something to Komori, the night shift cashier Ryoko and Nao know that they need to find out what is happening in the store, if they can stay sane and alive for long enough.

Cursed starts off as a good ghost film, it’s not too creepy but there is a bit of gore.  As it goes on it does get creepier, the Parka guy is an interesting character but possibly under used and this seems to be a bit of a recurring problem.  There are a number of deaths in the film and all of them are different, i understand that they are supposed to be the manifestation of the curse and they are supposed to be person/environment specific but each death seems to bring an unrelated character or event in just to kill off the person and then they are forgot.  This would have been ok if the murderers were connected or possessed but they are unconnected, swinging from normal people to ghosts & slashers all of whom  have no explanation.  Cursed should have either stuck to one or two killers (they could have used the Parka guy) or gone down the route of having events not people to do the killing in a similar style to the ‘Final Destination’ series.  Instead Cursed give the impression that it is trying fit too much in, it obviously knows what it is but it seems to want to try to please too many people.

Cursed also seems to be a bit  more ‘western’ that other J horrors I've seen.  It is definitely Japanese but there is definitely something different, the ‘slasher’ kill is more of a western style and when the woman in her apartment is about to be haunted is was expecting her to open the fridge and see a dog shouting ‘Zool’ and we do get a second ‘dimension’ to inside of the fridge before getting a ghost reminiscent of the ‘Ring’.

Over all Cursed is a good if somewhat confused film that tries to do too much and falls a little short of what it should be.  It does have gore and quite a good story line so give it watch.