There's only so many times a franchise can spam little boy in underwear or creepy crawling girl and still be effectively horrifying. For Ju-on that expiration date has passed a couple of movies ago. Final Curse offers so little novelty, and logic for that matter, it becomes a predictable movie that's more annoying with blaring jump scares than actually delivering terror.
It introduces many perspectives, more than half a dozen in total. What starts with Mai trying to find her sister who was lost from previous movie, escalates into lingering haunting for her and anyone even remotely close to the tragedy. This includes unsuspecting neighbor and school friend of the strange boy's cousin. It's really reaching for victims at this point, but having large cast doesn't mean more dread.
Main issue is these people don't act naturally. They would stare or freeze at the most unfortunate moment instead of running, the ghost spends most of the movie crawling for god's sake. More often than not they would literally walk into the haunting without any plan and scream in surprise when meeting expected fate.
Not that the horror is done decently, the use of this pale boy has become silly. Audience should know the pattern already, yet the movie keeps churning the same things, even resorting to increase the volume and literally screaming in one's face. A couple of the scenes might work, like the little girl in hospital, but eventually it returns to old gimmick again.
It's an exhausting viewing, what little suspense it has it buried within clumsy effect and outdated forced jump scare.
It introduces many perspectives, more than half a dozen in total. What starts with Mai trying to find her sister who was lost from previous movie, escalates into lingering haunting for her and anyone even remotely close to the tragedy. This includes unsuspecting neighbor and school friend of the strange boy's cousin. It's really reaching for victims at this point, but having large cast doesn't mean more dread.
Main issue is these people don't act naturally. They would stare or freeze at the most unfortunate moment instead of running, the ghost spends most of the movie crawling for god's sake. More often than not they would literally walk into the haunting without any plan and scream in surprise when meeting expected fate.
Not that the horror is done decently, the use of this pale boy has become silly. Audience should know the pattern already, yet the movie keeps churning the same things, even resorting to increase the volume and literally screaming in one's face. A couple of the scenes might work, like the little girl in hospital, but eventually it returns to old gimmick again.
It's an exhausting viewing, what little suspense it has it buried within clumsy effect and outdated forced jump scare.