Writer/Director Takashi Shimizu, who has been passionate about filmmaking since he was a child, explains the roots of his life-long interest: “When I was in primary school, I saw Steven Spielberg’s E.T. and realized that film was where I wanted to be. I began as an assistant director for three or four years, but since I didn’t have the chance to study more about camera work and lighting, I decided to go to film school.”
Prolific Japanese producer, Taka Ichise, whose credits include Ringu, the Japanese- language horror movie that was remade into the Hollywood hit The Ring, is credited with taking a chance on Shimizu while he was still a film student. “Hiroshi Takashi, the screenwriter of Ringu, got in touch with me to tell me about Shimizu, a promising young student who was currently in his class at film school,” Ichise explains. Takashi had been impressed by one of Shimizu’s class projects and submitted it to Ichise who was, at the time, looking for someone to make a short horror drama that could be audible over a mobile phone.
“Shimizu showed me two shorts he had previously made, both of which were expertly done,” Ichise continues.
“I had made these films after seeing Ringu,” says Shimizu, “and was determined to make a horror movie in a completely different style, something radically different, even if I failed miserably. My idea was to show ghosts, not as specters, but in a clearer, more realistic fashion.”
Ichise had an agreement with the Japanese company V-Cinema to make two movies for video distribution. He decided to hand the assignment to the promising young director. “I said to Shimizu, ‘Why don’t you make these two videos about anything you like as long as they are really scary.’ So he brought me a script that became the basis for the JU-ON series.”
The two JU-ON videos developed a major word-of-mouth following throughout Asia, catching the attention of executive producer Roy Lee who had previously discovered Ringu and championed its successful American remake The Ring starring Naomi Watts. “I first heard about it from a journalist named Alvin Lu who claimed that JU-ON was the scariest movie he had ever seen,” Lee recalls. “He sent me a copy of the movie and I watched it. Even though it was an un-subtitled print, it was powerfully frightening. I couldn’t shake its horrifying images from my mind.”
Lee approached a young screenwriter, Stephen Susco, to fashion an English-language script of JU-ON. “I had been an avid fan of Asian horror films for quite some time,” says Susco. “They seemed to be consistently pushing the envelope in terms of the genre.” When I first saw the original JU-ON films, I was both frightened and fascinated. Shimizu had taken things a step further by adding a non-linear narrative structure that added a powerful new dynamic to the genre, a sense of emotional instability and disorientation. Not only was his use of a non-linear structure masterful, but he peppered the film with some of the most arresting and terrifying images I’d ever seen. I didn’t so much agree to write the script as I was compelled to do it.”
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