By 2015, the Ju-On series had been haunting audiences for over a decade — long enough that even Kayako’s ghost probably needed a vacation. Promoted as the final film in the legendary Japanese horror franchise, Ju-On: The Final Cursepromised to close the book on the long, tangled saga of croaky ghost moms and their meowing demon children. Instead, it’s the cinematic equivalent of being haunted by your own poor life choices.
If this really was meant to be the finale, then the curse truly did win — because it finally managed to kill the franchise itself.
The Plot (Or a Reasonable Facsimile Thereof)
Ju-On: The Final Curse is told through eight vignettes, because apparently the easiest way to disguise a lack of narrative coherence is to chop it up into segments and pretend it’s art. Each segment is named after a character — Mai, Reo, Ena, Madoka, Toshio, Midori, Sota, and Kayako — none of whom you’ll remember five minutes after the credits roll.
The story, if we can call it that, revolves around a bunch of unfortunate souls who either move into, live near, or so much as think about the cursed Saeki household. Predictably, Kayako crawls around like a deranged yoga instructor, Toshio meows like a cat with lung problems, and people die in a variety of confusing ways that make little sense but look spooky in a trailer.
This time, though, the writers decided to get creative. The curse apparently has a new puppet master — Toshio Yamaga, because one cursed child clearly wasn’t enough. The kid can now body-hop between victims, which means you get multiple TOSHIOs for the price of one ticket. Somewhere, the original screenwriter is crying into his VHS tapes.
The Cursed Curse of Repetition
At this point in the franchise, watching Ju-On is like attending a haunted family reunion: you’ve seen all the faces before, you know someone’s going to scream, and you just want to go home.
The same tropes are back — long black hair creeping out of tubs, a ghostly hand clutching from the shadows, a character realizing too late that the house is cursed. But now, the jump scares land with the enthusiasm of a ghost that’s already bored of haunting you.
The film’s structure — anachronistic and fragmented — might have worked once, back when it was new. But eleven movies later, it feels less like nonlinear storytelling and more like someone dropped the script into a blender. The result is a confusing slurry of “wait, who is this again?” moments stitched together by ominous sound design and the occasional wet gurgle.
If the Ju-On curse feeds on repetition, this movie should be unstoppable.
Ghosts Gone Wild
One of the few joys of bad horror is watching the villains commit to the bit. Sadly, even Kayako seems to be phoning it in. She crawls, she croaks, she poses dramatically in doorways — it’s all very professional, but it’s also very tired. She’s been murdering people for fifteen years and honestly looks like she’d rather be binge-watching The Haunting of Hill House instead.
Toshio, once the franchise’s eeriest element, has devolved into a pale boy who occasionally pops up to remind us that yes, this is still Ju-On. When he’s not meowing like a demonic housecat, he’s possessing random people because, I guess, the writers were out of ideas for what a ghost child does after ten movies.
There’s even a karaoke murder scene — yes, you read that correctly — in which a teen girl mourns her missing sister, only for the screen to glitch and her dead sibling to appear. It’s the kind of moment that makes you nostalgic for The Ring, back when haunted technology had standards.
The Final Curse of Overacting
The performances in The Final Curse range from “mildly confused” to “screaming like it’s a contest.” Airi Taira, as Mai Shono, does her best to emote through the chaos, but she’s trapped in a film that treats character development like an optional feature. Most of the cast exists solely to react to noises, follow ghostly children into dark hallways, and die dramatically before the next vignette begins.
Renn Kiriyama, as Sota the boyfriend, spends most of his scenes looking like he regrets signing the contract. His death sequence involves strangulation and ghost paranoia, which, to be fair, is also how most viewers felt halfway through the film.
Even Kayako, the iconic croaking ghost herself, seems over this franchise. She still does her signature back-bend crawl, but now it looks like she’s stretching out after a long shift.
Plot Twists No One Asked For
The revelation that the curse’s real puppet master is another Toshio — one who can leap between bodies like a spectral Pokémon — is the kind of twist that feels designed by committee. It’s as if the producers said, “You know what this story needs? A second haunted child and an explanation that makes the curse even less coherent!”
What made the original Ju-On terrifying was its simplicity: an inexplicable evil that punished anyone who dared cross its path. By trying to give the curse lore, rules, and transferable ghost powers, the movie robs it of all mystery. It’s like explaining how magic tricks work — only instead of awe, you’re left with exhaustion.
The Real Curse: Boredom
The scariest thing about Ju-On: The Final Curse isn’t the ghosts — it’s the runtime. Clocking in at a bloated 90 minutes, the film feels like three hours of déjà vu wrapped in fog. The pacing lurches between scenes of people walking slowly toward sounds and scenes of other people walking slowly away from them.
Every now and then, the soundtrack shrieks like someone stepped on a violin, but the scares never land. It’s horror by muscle memory — the film knows the moves, but not the meaning.
Even the editing seems haunted. Scenes cut off mid-scream, others linger for awkward eternity, and the transitions are so jarring it’s as if the ghost of bad pacing itself possessed the timeline.
The Franchise’s Funeral
The saddest part of The Final Curse is its false advertising. Marketed as the “last” Ju-On movie, it was supposed to tie up the franchise with a satisfying, terrifying finale. Instead, it’s a limp, incoherent epilogue that feels more like a contractual obligation than a creative vision.
Rather than wrapping up fifteen years of storytelling, it just adds new ghosts to a franchise already overcrowded with them. By the end, it’s less a horror movie and more an endurance test — a séance conducted by people who’ve forgotten why they’re summoning spirits in the first place.
Of course, the curse didn’t actually end here. Because nothing in Ju-On ever dies — not the ghosts, not the victims, and certainly not the producers’ desire for one more sequel.
Final Verdict: The Grudge That Wouldn’t Quit
Ju-On: The Final Curse is less a horror movie and more a haunted screensaver. It’s all atmosphere and no soul, a greatest-hits montage performed by ghosts who clearly need a new agent.
If this is the grand finale, then it’s like watching the Titanic sink for the eleventh time — slower, louder, and somehow less emotional.
It’s time to let Kayako rest in peace, or at least let her haunt a better script. Until then, the only real curse here is on the audience.
Rating: 1.5 ghostly meows out of 5.
The franchise may be dead, but the sound of your groaning will live forever.
