Cinematic Practices of Repetitions in “The Grudge” and “Ju-On: Origins”: Remaking Networks, Contexts and Building Taxonomy

Globalization processes profoundly affected the world economy and, consequently, film industries. Film remakes, among the most well-known forms of creative repetitions, became a norm, especially when approached by Hollywood. The scholarship usually associates remaking with the institutional practices of recycling previously established and financially successful trademarks. However, continuous releases of repeated film titles created complicated and hybrid forms. Various examples of how these forms intersect and even initiate remaking “cycles.” This paper will argue how The Grudge (2020), directed by Nicolas Pesce, and the Netflix TV series Ju-On: Origins / 呪怨：呪いの家 (2020), directed by Shō Miyake, reflect recent changes in contemporary understanding of film repetitions. Both titles originate from identical source material and are familiar to their target audiences. Simultaneously, they recontextualize the source film, delivering relevant meanings to fit their alleged cultural environment while allowing extensive importations from the source, Ju-On-related and other genre titles. This complexity of meanings and references further blurs the boundaries between remake and other types of repetitions, with the latter posing an issue for building sufficient remaking taxonomy. This paper will deliver a formal and critical analysis of the selected motion pictures’ aesthetical forms, contextual content and repetitive nature. The analysis of the case studies enables academic evaluation of the complexity of existing “multiplicities in film” (Klein & Palmer, 2016), “transmedia supersystems” (Kinder, 1991) and distinguishing anthologies from “networks” of film repetitions, research their content adjustments and value as well as the potential of building any context-anchored taxonomy opposed to the existing attempts summarized by the scholars.