What actually happens
A husband who did not take the news well
Several years before the main story, Takeo Saeki finds out that his wife, Kayako, is in love with another man. He murders her, and he also kills the family cat, Mar, and their son, Toshio. The murders create a curse. The family comes back as vengeful ghosts, and Kayako's ghost kills Takeo. Eventually the curse takes anyone who enters the family's house in Nerima, Tokyo. It also attaches itself to the place where each victim dies, so it reaches whoever walks in there next.
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A new family moves into the house
The house's newest residents are Katsuya Tokunaga, who works in an office, along with Kazumi, his wife, and Sachie, his sick mother. The curse takes Kazumi fast. Takeo's ghost possesses Katsuya, who then dies too. Kayako's ghost next trails Hitomi, Katsuya's sister, to her workplace and kills a security guard there, then kills Hitomi herself at her apartment. Rika is a social worker whose boss, Hirohashi, sends her to look after Sachie. She finds Toshio in the house, then watches Kayako's ghost kill Sachie and faints. Hirohashi finds her and calls the police. The detectives, Nakagawa and Igarashi, come across the bodies of Katsuya and Kazumi up in the attic, and they learn that Hitomi has disappeared and that the guard died at her workplace. Hirohashi's body turns up as well, and the ghosts start haunting Rika.
A retired detective who intended to burn it all down
Nakagawa and Igarashi look into the house and the Saeki murders, and they contact Toyama, a retired detective who is afraid to go back to the case. Toyama goes to the house to burn it down, but he can hear several teenage girls upstairs. One runs away and the rest are consumed. Kayako appears and chases Toyama away. She kills Nakagawa and Igarashi. Toyama becomes a shut-in and the curse gets him in the end, and he leaves behind a young daughter, Izumi.
Rika's friend goes to school
Rika has put the visit behind her and gone back to her normal life. Her friend Mariko teaches elementary school, and she calls on Toshio, a registered student of hers who has never turned up to class. Rika races to save her and is too late. Kayako's ghost then comes after Rika, who sees herself as Kayako's "true face". Rika takes over Kayako's role and, from her own point of view, gets cornered by Takeo's ghost, who kills her the same way he killed Kayako. This is Rika's death, and it comes near the end.
The ending, explained
Izumi, Toyama's daughter, visits the house as a teenager with her friends. She runs away while Kayako kills them, and this is the same event Toyama glimpsed earlier in a premonition. Fourteen days afterward, two other friends deliver some photos to her. A news broadcast says Rika's body has been found in the Saeki house. Izumi is racked with guilt and increasingly paranoid, her mother is under the curse as well, and the eyes in the photos of Izumi and her dead friends are blacked out. Izumi sees her dead father, then the ghosts of her friends, who corner her. Kayako appears and drags Izumi into damnation. In the last scene, missing-person posters lie on the ground in nearly empty Tokyo streets. Rika's corpse, with much longer hair like Kayako's, lies in the attic and reawakens with a death rattle.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits, so stay if you want to be sure.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: no dogs in this one.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Ju-on: The Grudge scary?
Yes, Ju-on: The Grudge is a 6 out of 10. It has jump scares and a bleak, quiet mood.
How does Ju-on: The Grudge end?
Kayako's ghost drags a teenager named Izumi into damnation. Rika is already dead, and her corpse reawakens in the attic as the film ends.
Does the dog die in Ju-on: The Grudge?
No, because there are no dogs in Ju-on: The Grudge. The family cat, Mar, is killed in the backstory.
Is there a post-credits scene in Ju-on: The Grudge?
Nobody has confirmed whether Ju-on: The Grudge has a scene after the credits, so stay if you want to be sure.
What is the curse in Ju-on: The Grudge?
The curse comes from the murders of Kayako and her son Toshio by her husband Takeo. It turns the family into vengeful ghosts, and it spreads to anyone who enters their house in Nerima, Tokyo and to the places where those people die.
