As the English-language version was being written, Ichise made a Japanese theatrical version of JU-ON. Lee decided to show the film to director Sam Raimi, himself a master of the genre. “I had a feeling Sam would appreciate the horror because it had a similar sensibility to Sam’s movie The Evil Dead.”
“JU-ON is one of the most terrifying films I’d ever seen,” says Raimi. “Shimizu crafted some unique onscreen scares. His style and pacing were relentless. He never left you any time to catch your breath. He had clearly elevated the genre to a new level.”
As soon as he saw it, Raimi was determined to back the American remake through his production company Ghost House Pictures and to have Shimizu direct the English-language version as well. Shimizu was, at first, unsure about redoing his film with an American cast. “Since I had already done this story, I thought it would be better for a U.S. director to try his hand at it instead,” says Shimizu.
But after meeting with Raimi, Shimizu changed his mind. “Sam talked with great passion and specificity about particular scenes in the original JU-ON,” says the director. “He also told me he wanted the American version to have the kinds of effects I had not been able to do because of budget constraints. My interest was piqued, because I realized I would have the creative freedom to explore different facets of the story than I had previously and to take things even further. I just couldn’t pass up that opportunity.”
About two years after Lee first screened JU-ON, Shimizu was behind the camera remaking it as The Grudge. “Perhaps the largest hurdle in refashioning the script,” says Ichise, “was in making allowances for the differing sensibilities of Japanese and American filmmakers and what they think is frightening to an audience. There are special characteristics that are unique in Japanese horror movies. For instance, in many cases the mystery is never solved, nor is a conclusion to the story reached. For Japanese audiences that open-ended quality in itself is considered scary. But American audiences seem to require a more definitive resolution.”
Adds screenwriter Susco, “There were challenges in the writing process that I hadn’t faced before. The most prominent was to find the proper way to blend my own original ideas with Shimizu’s. I didn’t want to step on his toes, nor create a story that didn’t live up to the high standard he had set with the original films. But throughout the entire process, Shimizu gave me the freedom to explore my own ideas, all the while guiding the script’s development with his steady and confident directorial vision. I am thankful for his collaborative spirit and honored to have worked with a man, who in my opinion, is already one of the most talented horror filmmakers working today.”
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