J-horror curses spread — "survival" means passing the curse on

Western horror has a resolution architecture: the monster is defeated or contained, the Final Girl walks away, order is restored. Even if the sequel hook opens the door, the film itself closes with order reasserted. The curse breaks.

J-horror doesn't offer that. The Ringu curse persists past the film's end — Reiko "survives" by copying the tape and passing it to someone else. The Ju-on curse spreads on contact, and no one in the film's universe is positioned to stop it. Survival isn't escape; it's transmission. The protagonist doesn't defeat the threat; she becomes a vector for it.

This is the nihilism that gets smoothed away in American remakes. Hollywood needs a legible defeat. The Japanese original is content to let the curse win — because in the kegare framework, the curse is more like weather than a villain. You don't defeat weather. You endure it or you don't.

"In Hollywood, the curse breaks. In Japan, it's passed on."

Source claim: J-horror's "survival" is transmission, not escape — the curse persists because it operates as contagion, not as a defeatable antagonist.