STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH

THE GRUDGE

(2004)
With Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Bill Pullman, Ryo Ishibashi, William Maphother, Clea DuVall, Grace Zabriskie, Yuya Ozeki, Takako Fuji, Yoko Maki
Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Reviewed by JB

Helloooo?       With the success of THE RING, Hollywood found a new goldmine that they will probably plunder until it is barren and completely laid to waste - remakes of Japanese horror movies. Not those of prehistoric monsters destroying Tokyo but rather ghost tales featuring a particular icon of Japanese horror, a young woman-spirit with stringy black hair, who has been wronged somehow and now seeks revenge (hence this film's title). THE GRUDGE, based on a popular Japanese horror series titled JU-ON, uses some of the same cast as the originals but is Americanized by the addition of a post-Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar as well as everybody's favorite alien-fighting President, Bill Pullman.

     THE GRUDGE is essentially a haunted house movie and could easily have named STOP GOING UP THE STAIRS, YOU MORONS, as a parade of strangers enter a spooky house in Japan, hear noises upstairs and then bound up there willy nilly to find out "what's all this, then?". Wisely, THE GRUDGE retains the original Japanese approach to horror, one in which linear storytelling takes a back seat to mood and emotion. You may not always know what is going on, but you will always be wondering what kind of creepy ghoul is going to pop up in a window or come crawling down the stairs next. It's nice to have Gellar and Pullman around, but the real stars of the film, fittingly, are the Japanese actors, especially Yuya Ozeki as the macabre little boy Toshio, Ryo Ishibashi as the clueless, trench-coated detective Nagakawa (who also starred in the creepy Japanese cult hit AUDITION), and Takako Fuji as the dark-haired ghost who does not like people entering her house.

     A good companion to THE RING, THE GRUDGE lacks that film's relative coherence, but one-ups it on pure supernatural weirdness. (Esoteric geeky fan note: Buffy fans such as myself may wonder if Gellar had a hand in suggesting the American cast, as Clea Duvall and Jason Behr both had memorable one-shot appearances on Gellar's supernatural - comedy - drama series.) ½ - JB

Previously Made As
Ju-On (Japanese, series of films)

Sequels
The Grudge 2 (2006)