Monday, May 25, 2009

Ju-on's Complex Discovery Plot.

Ju-on is a Japanese horror film that leaves the viewer bitting their nails,waiting for the little boy to walk behind the character who happens to be aimlessly wandering in a stranger's home to see if anyone is home. The characters then discover the boy before they are killed and dragged into the attic. The film is quite scary, not just because of the boy and the other ghosts, (or maybe they're zombies) but because of the way in which the story is presented. It is presented in a plot style that creates suspense and keeps the viewer interested; a plot style similar to the one known as the Complex Discovery Plot.

The film starts with the onset which is where the monster's presence is established to the audience. In Ju-on, this onset occurs when Rika, a volunteer, goes to an elderly woman's home to check up on her. While she is there she discovers that the woman's home is in terrible need of cleaning and begins to straighten up. She wanders upstairs to discover a little boy locked in the closet. When she tries to alert the old woman, she and the audience see the terror in the woman's face as a ghost is lerking over them that eventually kills the old woman. This part in the film is when it becomes obvious that something is wrong in this house, because the boy has now disappeared as well.

The discovery, which is when an individual or group learns of its existance, occurs later when the police are called after another social worker discovers the dead woman and finds Rika in the corner of the room terrified. She askes the police if they found the little boy, but they tell her that there was no little boy that lived there, the previous owners had no children.

The confirmation is when the discover of the monster convinces others of the existance of the creature. In Ju-on this occurs when Rika tells the police the little boy's name, and insists that she saw him, she even hands them a picture of him with his parents she found. The police later find an old news story about a tragic incident involving a family of three, where the pictures in the paper matched the one she gave the police. The further strengthen the confirmation, the police bring in the detective who worked the case. He has connections with the original case, one in which he knew something else was occuring.

The confrontation of the plot is when the character/s face the monster. In this film, there were multiple cronfrontations, but the most important one is when Rika returns to the house to save her friend who is tutoring a "little boy" in the same house where everything happened earlier. She runs in, but doesn't find her friend, but instead finds the ghost who hears her in the house and comes down the steps on her hands and feet after Rika.

To be honest the ending of the film is confusing, so I can only give my interpretation of it. There is more than one ghost. The one that comes down the steps after Rika is the mother of the little boy. She was killed by her husband because the little boy wasn't his son, but that of another man. The boy was killed as well because he watched his mother being murdered and then the husband killed himself. Whent the mother comes down the steps after Rika, she possesses Rika's body, which is then killed by the ghost of the husband thinking it is his wife, the whole time as the little boy watches from the stairs above.

The plot structure adds the suspense to the films, creating one that keeps you on the edge on your seat, literally.

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