STREAMING : JU-ON : ORIGINS : GASP

A Soul-Snatching Watch : Unlike other horror stories where evil is omnipresent and the character it takes over are loathsome to begin with, in JU-ON : Origins the people are pitiful and morose souls commandeered by powers beyond human comprehension.

JU-ON : Origins is a strange blend peculiar yet vague, macabre yet scare-free, bizarre yet intriguing.

Whether these assorted qualities make a project good or not, I can't say for certain.

I've yet to decipher and compartmentalize my feelings. In any case, the six-episode series of 30-odd minutes each has titillated my senses enough to seek out director Sho Maiyake's earlier works.

As far as Origin is concerned, seeing the American film series doesn't help [coincidentally]. I'd just finished binging on The Grudge series, a few days back].

Tonally, Origins, fits right in with the movies. Narratively, it left me befuddled by the questions it raised without supplying answers. This ambiguity, again, could be a good thing. Who knows?

Ju-On and The Grudge are designed to be awfully jumbled pieces of fiction. The curse is strongly esoteric, as are the frenzied rationales it forces into its victims' minds, that lead to horrible actions.

The clearest general idea one gets of how the curse works comes from the tagline at the start of the movies : When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage............a curse is born. The curse gathers in that place of death. Those who encounter it will be consumed by its fury.

What the tagline doesn't mention is that the curse originates at a specific dwelling - a small, unassuming quiet house in the middle of similar unassuming houses in Tokyo. Without the span Origins, the curse affects three different families between 1988 and 1997.

In 1988, actress Haruka Honjo [Yuina Kuroshima] appears as a guest on a talkshow to reveal that she'd heard mysterious footsteps in her home. Frightened out of her wits, she moves into her boyfriend's place, but the haunting has tagged along.

Yasuo Odajima [YosiYosi Arakawai] a paranormal investigator searching for stories he can author into non-fiction horror books, finds out that Haruka is being haunted by the curse from the aforementioned house. The catch is that no one knows where the house is.

In all unconnected story, Kiyomi Kawai [Ririka], an emotionally distant girl has suddenly transferred to a new school.

We soon learn that the mother and daughter living through a strained relationship, because the daughter had seduced her own father.

Like most backstories in Origins, we're kept in the dark on what happened to the father, or why they're alone.

A warped rumour leads to a ruthless and inhuman turn in Kiyomi's life, when she ends up at the same cursed house.

Kyomi and Haruka aren't the only ones affected by the evil's machinations. the curse seizes almost every supporting character in the series as the stories continue to jump forward in time.

By 1994, the house is owned by a new couple, Nabuhiko and Keiko Haida 'Shinsuke Kato and Nana Yanagisawa] ................

Streaming now on Netflix, JU-ON : Orgins is rated R for violence, rape, sex, implied nudity, blood and gore.

The World Students Society thanks review author Mohammad Kamran Jawaid.