The Grudge (2004) Movie Review:


Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Karen, a foreign exchange student working at a Tokyo medical clinic that provides palliative care for its patients.

One day Karen hears that her co-worker Yoko hasn’t shown up for work and is asked by her supervisor Alex (Ted Raimi) to cover for Yoko. When Karen arrives at the designated address she finds an elderly catatonic American woman named Emma (Grace Zabriskie) and the whole house in disarray.

As Karen pieces together what went on in the house she finds herself facing off against an evil and ancient curse, known as “The Grudge”.

What triggers such a curse? What is the meaning behind its awakening? And will Karen be able to figure it out before it swallows her whole?

The best way to describe “The Grudge” is that it is a cross between “Lost in Translation” and “The Amityville Horror”.

What makes it such an interesting horror film to watch is that for nearly 85% of the film there is no soundtrack and the film relies on the actors, creaks, nasal releases and echoes to deliver its horror. This kind of horror film hasn’t probably been seen in quite sometime.

The film’s direction and overall subtleness reminded me a lot of old Hitchcock films. Hitchcock probably would have loved Gellar as one of his leading ladies. The layout and feel is very Hitchcock but the film doesn’t ever reach the quality scares found in a lot of the old Hitchcock classics. It does deliver with a whole lot of creepiness, though.

The director and creator of “The Grudge”, Takashi Shimizu has been retelling this story from all sorts of angles for nearly four years now and this is his fifth film about the subject matter. The Japanese horror legend started in 2000 with “Ju-On: The Curse” which spawned the four film Japanese series and this American remake.

In the film you can see that the director has been doing this along time. There seems to be no real effort in trying to explain itself as the film chugs along. Shimizu’s playing with the film’s linear direction is interesting but tends to take away from telling the story.

I liked Sarah Michelle Gellar’s very subtle and withdrawn approach to this character and that in a lot of ways helped me make the Hitchcock jump. What I didn’t like was that Gellar was never really able to use her acting chops except with maybe facial expressions. There are a lot of seemingly mimed expressions and gestures in this film.

I liked a lot of what “The Grudge” was trying to get across but felt it should have left more of an impact and had a genuine horrific Hitchcock thriller ending. Instead it seems to end on an insincere Hollywood cliché.

(3.5 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer

Dean Kish

THE GRUDGE

After moving to Tokyo with her boyfriend Doug (Behr), Karen (Gellar) finds herself a job as a care assistant to an American family living in the city. When she arrives at the house, she finds it in total disarray and Emma (Zabriskie), the elderly woman she supposed to be looking after, struggling on the floor petrified with fright. As she gets Emma back into bed and begins to tidy the house, Karen starts to realise that she is not alone.

The trend of remaking hit Japanese horror movies for American audiences continues but ‘The Grudge’ is very different.

Instead of hiring a western director and giving the movie a Hollywood shake up, the studio heads at Universal made the best possible decision. They hired the original film’s director, Takashi Shimizu. Giving him complete control, the studio allowed the director to basically remake his original movie but exchange some of the Japanese cast with American talent. They also allowed him to film the movie in Tokyo and use the original actors that terrified Far Eastern audiences so comprehensively.

Asian cinema is becoming the new hotbed of talent in the Horror genre. After the success of the Ringu series, Dark Water, The Eye and many others, the Hollywood bigwigs has started to take notice. The Grudge is the first movie from Evil Dead and Spider-Man helmer Sam Raimi’s Production Company, Ghost House Pictures and it is the horror maestro that allows Shimizu to bring his story of vengeful spirits to an English speaking audience. The Asian horror theme has moved away from the usual Hollywood horror stance that sees teenagers become the bloody victims of masked killers. Instead they have embraced the supernatural, as extremely evil spirits kill indiscriminately, whatever age or gender. As an alternate to gore and excessive killings, these movies rely on shock scares and genuine creepiness that will send shivers down your spine and make you jump out of your skin. This is a quite refreshing approach that has injected some much-needed freshness into what was becoming a very stale genre.

Shimizu’s Japanese original was a low budget affair that contained some good frights and random scares. Now Ghost House has given him the budget and the technical means to push his vision to its visual limits. In a very rare instance, this remake actually improves on the original. While we have to endure the inclusion of American stars, this is a help not a hindrance to the film. He keeps the character driven mini stories but forgoes some of the lesser tales that interrupted the flow of the original. Now the film revolves around Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Karen and the Williams family who have moved into the house. The movie still jumps around the timeline, introducing a character and then showing their backstory or involvement with the house, but now the film is far more coherent and logical than the original.

The performances are also better. Sarah Michelle Gellar is still trying to shake the ghost of Buffy but she will insist on acting in films with a supernatural content. Her performance is good with her looking petrified when she needs to be and screaming at all the right moments. Jason Behr, Ted Raimi and Bill Pullman are also good. Returning to their roles from the original, Yuya Ozeki and Takako Fuji as Toshio and Kayako, the angry spirits that haunt the house, now look even more terrifying. The film is mainly about them or their presence and the rest of the cast are just their victims in waiting.

The Grudge is a rare remake that surpasses the original. Even though the backstory could do with more explanation, the plot soul purpose is to scare you and it certainly succeeds in that. It isn’t as frightening as The Eye, Ringu or Dark Water but it does have some extremely good jumpy moments. Takashi Shimizu has been given the backing to bring the ultimate version of his movie to the screen and points the way for future Hollywood remakes of hit Asian movies by getting the original director and crew involved.

Star Rating = * * * *

Jamie Kelwick

 

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