If you ask me the entire point of a prequel – be it a movie, television series or whatever – is to elaborate on, to build upon. what currently exists.

I mean, as much hate as is typically thrown at Exorcist II: The Heretic (a favorite of mine) – which is technically a sequel though it also plays like a prequel as well – it at least answers questions you may have had about events in The Exorcist.

Perhaps not satisfactory, but answers them nonetheless.

So, going into Ju-On: Origins I fully expected by the end of it to understand the curse that’s been affecting potential homeowners for a few decades on and off.

And that doesn’t happen.

Instead we get a somewhat muddled narrative that movies forward and backward in time that ends up explaining very little.

That’s not to imply that it’s bad – it’s not – though I wish that I got the feeling that it’s going somewhere, as opposed to being buoyed in a cursed holding pattern.

The story, ike in the movies, revolves around a house where all sorts of heinou,s terrible things happen. And happen. And happen.

And that’s okay – because horror – though I’d like there to be a point to it…and there just doesn’t appear to be.

Though keep in mind this is the first season of a series so maybe at some point they’ll get to the point why all of this horror has been going on for so long.

Though at this point I’d be satisfied learning why the kid ghost meows like a damn cat.