Nao (Hiroko Satô) works as a cashier in a convenience store that occupies a plot of land previously owned by a mass murderer and which is built on foundations made from crushed gravestones. As a result, the place is a centre for negative energy, its aisles are haunted by menacing soul-less creatures (a bit like my local ASDA), and anyone unwise enough to shop there winds up dead soon after. Will Nao also fall foul of the curse on her creepy workplace?Low-budget Asian ghost flick Cursed is a mish-mash of frustratingly familiar themes inspired by a whole slew of other (but not necessarily better, IMHO) J-Horror 'classics'; but although it doesn't demonstrate much in the way of originality in terms of actual content, Yoshihiro Hoshino's unconventional directorial style and random approach to plot development does ensure that his film offers just enough novelty and individuality to prevent it from feeling too stale.Hoshino opens with a rather predictable but still very effective jolt, quickly develops a suitably creepy atmosphere that is sustained throughout, and delivers at least one genuinely tense scene (featuring a sledgehammer wielding killer) amidst the more routine J-horror elements: eyes staring out from unexpected places, a spooky girl crawling from an electrical household appliance, a silent faceless figure in a Parka coat... y'know, all that malarkey.

Although this movie seems to be a little cheesy with respect to the characters of the store owners, much of the rest of the movie is extremely creepy. Right away there is a sense that all is not well in this mini-mart. The people working in it and even the customers are at risk to walk out the front door and take something horrifying home with them. While the main characters are searching for an answer as to what or who is haunting this establishment, only the crazy woman with the baby carriage seems to understand the real inner workings of this mini-mart. When the craziest character in the movie has all the answers, you know anything can happen. What gives this movie the creeps is the three screen splice that shows three different characters as they leave the mini-mart and something is leaving with them. During the three screen splice we are listening to an anchorman with the up to date gory news of the day. As he reads the gruesome details the characters are becoming tomorrows news! This movie is a favorite of mine because each time you watch it, you still feel your hair stand on end, again and again.

It's first important that I tell you that Cursed is very low budget. Why? Because the UK release has impressive box art that suggests this is an A-Movie with an A-Movie budget. It's not, it's a B-Movie with an unknown cast and low production values. It's very well made given it's budget, and some of Japan's best horror moments (Kairo, Ringu, Dark Water) are fairly low-budget by US/UK standards anyway, so by no means hold it's budget against it, but it IS very low budget.Warnings aside, Cursed is a very odd, off-kilter horror. Being a Japanese film, Cursed does provide many of the things you'd expect, like lank haired, slow moving girl-ghosts, and bizarre signs and twists that lead your detective work from one side of the street to another continuously. However, it's the new elements that make it interesting. In terms of vibe and style, Cursed draws more from directors like Lynch, Shinya Tsukamoto and Miike Takashi than the key players in the J-Horror genre. If you're expecting a stop gap till they crank out the third Grudge, stop here. This ain't Ringu, it ain't Ju-on. It's a new beast entirely.It goes like this. There's a convenience store where protagonist Nao works, and it's got a curse on it. When your items come up to any variant of 666 or 999, something follows you home from the store and messes up your life in one way or another. Mostly the victims get killed, but one or two have something different happen to them, and they're never followed by the same spirit, so each haunting/killing is different and unique. This is the second thing other than the direction that sets it apart from the rest of the J-Horror crowd. In the Ring films and others of their ilk, the horror is in wondering at what point the ghost will appear, whereas in Cursed, while you know something is gonna turn nasty at any moment, anything could happen, so you're more on edge.Still, despite it being fresh and new in style, there are a few niggling factors that got on my nerves. The hypnotic, trippy visuals make the hauntings and deaths more hallucinatory than scary, so in honesty Cursed is not a hugely frightening movie. It's far less overblown or cliché than something like Shutter or One Missed Call, but in it's experimentalist nature it loses a lot of the ghost-house fun of a straight horror movie. I got annoyed at times with the random bouts of cartoon violence as well, there's a few scenes that aren't as horrific as they could be with a little more restraint, and when there is blood (and to be honest this movie earns it's 18 certificate quite admirably with one scene alone) there's too much and it collapses into Brian Yuzna style comic book violence.Minor issues with an otherwise brave and very creepy entry into the J-Horror library. It isn't a thrill ride, but Cursed is a spooky, psychedelic and above all believably dark tale that's well worth anyone's time.

I'm going to try and keep this brief, because this movie really isn't worth the time or effort of typing anything more than a few lines! First off, this is one of the most yawn inducing movies I've ever seen. There is little in the way of plot, and some of the characters are just irritating rather than being creepy or weird as their obviously trying (and failing) to be! The plot is just plain silly, and the resulting 'twist'(if you can call it that) at the end is just laughable. I hated every comatose inducing second of this movie. This is the painting by numbers method of Asian Horror movie making. You've seen it all before, and done MUCH better!