Last week, a new horror series hit Netflix called JU-ON Origins and it brought a lot of scares to viewers over the weekend.
Check out our spoiler-free review of JU-ON Origins here.
However, for those of you who want a few more spoilers about the new series, including how this connects with the original JU-ON movies and the American spin-off The Grudge, here is what you need to know.
JU-ON Origins explained
For those readers who didn’t know, JU-ON was the Japanese movie Hollywood remade as The Grudge.
For those people who have not seen the movies, The Grudge tells the story of a vengeance spirit. Fans of Supernatural saw it as one of the first spirits the boys faced – a mother who lost her child and sought vengeance on anyone who crosses her threshold.
This Netflix horror series repeats that very scary legend.
The “grudge” from the American movie title is what leads the focus of this vengeance spirit – The Woman in White.
In the Netflix series, it all starts in 1952 when a man sexually abuses a woman he has taken hostage. She ends up pregnant and then dies after giving birth to the baby. The man then leaves with the baby, and the spirit of the mother remains there, holding a deadly grudge.
Now, anyone who lives in that house faces the vengeful spirit, and it drives them to commit murder themselves.
With that, it is the same as the movies which came before it. It is just as bleak and dark, if not more so.
No one gets out alive.
In JU-ON Origins, there is one exception to the rule.
Why did Yasuo not die?
There was one person who seemed to escape the grudge – Yasuo.
While it is not implicitly explained why The Woman in White spared him and warned him to get out, there is one horrible reason.
However, first up, Yasuo’s original survival was when he was younger. He has a chance to take a demonic baby, but he rejects it and allows the mother to keep the child.
This was the opposite of the original villain, who ran off with the baby after the mother died. That seemed like a nice reason for a person to be spared the grudge.
However, the real reason is likely more ominous.
Yasuo went off and spread the word of the curse, and that sent more and more people to the house, where The Woman in White had an endless supply of victims. While not meaning to, Yasuo ended up an accomplice in the end.
How does JU-ON Origins connect to The Grudge?
The ghostly spirit from The Grudge movies is not here. This is a different vengeful spirit.
That is a good thing. It allows the Netflix series to live on its own, without relying on anyone knowing anything about the movies. At the same time, it lives in the same world.
This is a curse that rages on, in different places, in different people, in different spirits. However, it all shares the same theme – an intense rage and a grudge that can never be fulfilled.
The curse never ends.
JU-ON Origins is currently streaming on Netflix.