Working from the credo "If it still scares, don't exorcise it", Ju-on 2 retains the previous movie's episodic flashback structure (as did the two original, little-seen made-for-video instalments), each chapter named after a different character tainted by the cursed house and marked for death.

The sequel hits the ground screaming, as blue-skinned terror tyke Toshio shocks Kyoko's husband into crashing his car, resulting in her gruesome miscarriage.

With her husband in a coma, Kyoko becomes embroiled in an investigation of the demonic house, while flashbacks depict events leading up to the TV crew disturbing the vengeful phantasms.

While Ju-on sacrificed logic for pure horror, this is more traditional fare, with its "vulnerable female investigating the supernatural" plot of numerous Asian horror flicks, plus nods to The Blair Witch Project, Dark Water, and - with Kyoko's mysterious re-pregnation and its memorable pay-off - Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom.

Although a sequel, intimate knowledge of the previous film is not essential to follow the plot.

But scenes of bewildering plastic reality, such as various seemingly unrelated disturbances foreshadowing a gruesome double murder, are bowel-looseningly bloodcurdling and a naturalistic visual style places the chills in an unnervingly recognizable everyday world.

The cast convey the requisite amount of terror to convince that a murderous wig actually is scary, but the film belongs to Takako Fuji's Kayoko and Yuya Ozeki's Toshio.

Ozeki may get more poster time, but with her jerky movements and bug-eyed stare of unchecked fury, Fuji's creation knocks Ring's Sadako back into her TV.

With Shimizu remaking this sequel for the US as he did with The Grudge, the laws of diminishing returns can't be far off. But, for viewers whose knowledge of Asian horror starts and stops with cursed videotapes, Ju-on 2 is a fantastic fear factory, standing (decapitated) head and shoulders above gutless remakes and Ring rip-offs.

Rob Daniel