The Grudge
An English-language remake of the Japanese horror thriller "Ju-On".
Karen Davis is a woman residing in Japan with her boyfriend, who is studying abroad. Temporarily assigned to be caretaker for a woman with severe sleeping conditions, Kare goes to an unsuspecting house. But what she finds, is something she would never expect. The house is plagued by the presence of murderous ghosts, the result of a curse. The curse is born from someone dying in a powerful rage. Now, Kare finds herself being tormented by that curse, as it eventually starts claiming it's victims.
Member Reviews
fun, but confusing - ChemGeek
Although The Grudge was much better laid out and produced than it’ sequels, I must admit that it wasn’t nearly as thrilling as the trailers led me to believe. The timeline was quite convoluted, and difficult to follow since some characters were barely introduced before being later involved in a flashback. Several times, it left me wondering ‘is that person we saw die earlier? Did this happen yesterday or a month ago? Huh?’ Despite these drawbacks, I’ve still rated this movie as a ‘like’. There were a few good scares, and overall it was fun to watch, if a bit confusing. I was also quite impressed that the producer had the Japanese cops talking Japanese to each other (as they would be in the real world) instead of conveniently carrying on in english for the viewer’s benefit. This added an appreciated amount of realism to the film.Original Is Better... - kav2001c
This movie exists for one reason only;
The American public needs Gellar as the hero (they refuse to watch foreign films in general, and Asian films in particular)
Oh well
Overall this film is quite poor
Most of it is simply to scare the audiance (the majority of the scare scenes really are pointless)
The script doesnt translate well at all (even reading badly subtitled Japanese versions are preferable to this)
The only positive out of all this is it (like the Ring) at least gave western audiances a new angle on horror (which they are in the process of beating into the ground as we speak)Boos and blank stares - Baboonvideo
Watching The Grudge, a remake of the Japanese thriller Jo-un: The Grudge by that film’s original writer-director, Takashi Shimizu, it is clear that this is a man with far more interest in staging “boo” moments than a coherent storyline or functional characters. Following an American exchange student (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Tokyo who becomes haunted by a curse after entering a forbidden house, The Grudge can barely muster up enough energy to even give Gellar’s character a name, let alone any personality or background. What the film does have going for it are some potent visuals – a little kid whose mouth opens into a gaping black hole, a powder-white woman demon who is like the girl from The Ring crossed with a geisha – but the frights come sporadically and don’t cling together to form a solid whole. Worse, they all seem to take place only because the characters have a tendency to venture into various mysterious rooms for no reason other than Shimizu’s decision that it is time to once again awaken the audience from the flat pacing. Since they are just window dressing, stars Gellar and Bill Pullman (whose professor character has links to the source of the curse) are as dull as a ghost costume fabricated out of an old white sheet.
Member Reviews
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fun, but confusing - ChemGeek
Although The Grudge was much better laid out and produced than it’ sequels, I must admit that it wasn’t nearly as thrilling as the trailers led me to believe. The timeline was quite convoluted, and difficult to follow since some characters were barely introduced ...Original Is Better... - kav2001c
This movie exists for one reason only;
The American public needs Gellar as the hero (they refuse to watch foreign films in general, and Asian films in particular)
Oh well
Overall this film is quite poor
Most of it is simply to scare the audiance ...Boos and blank stares - Baboonvideo
Watching The Grudge, a remake of the Japanese thriller Jo-un: The Grudge by that film’s original writer-director, Takashi Shimizu, it is clear that this is a man with far more interest in staging “boo” moments than a coherent storyline or functional characters. ...