The Grudge
The Grudge is a 2004 remake of the Japanese thriller Ju-on: The Grudge. Takashi Shimizu directs the American remake and the original Japanese film it was based on, adding some validity to the remake process. The style of Shimizu is very obvious, but changes as to which culture he is working within. The Grudge does maintain some of its Japanese elements, as it is set in Japan, but features mainly American characters encountering the situations.
The Grudge is essentially a curse that travels from a person who dies in the grip of either great sorrow or great anger. The curse passes on to all who encounter it until that person is killed, and so on. The film itself takes a non-linear approach to the passing of the curse, jumping around in time without warning (or in many cases without cause).
The film follows the victims of the curse, from a family with a mother who needs care to the caregiver to the various family members and so on. The film tries to keep up a certain pace with a lot of jumping around, but it never quite achieves anything that engages the viewer. Instead, there is a lot of confusion in what is essentially a straightforward storyline.
Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Karen Davis. Davis is, like seemingly everyone else in Japan, an American in a fish out of water situation. She is an exchange student that works as a caregiver. Davis comes in contact with the curse while at work and it quickly becomes a part of her life. Like any American in Japan would do, she starts looking for clues to try to unravel the mystery and, like any female lead in horror films, she gets up close and personal with the curse more times than she would ever logically need to.
The fun of the film is in the eerie sounds and sights. While the Japanese version left more to the imagination, the American remake pushes some creepy sights a little too far and makes them almost cartoonish. This results in a weird combination of some eerie and truly scary scenes that are tempered with some scenes that seem ripe for parody.
One of the more interesting things in the film is the use of sound. There are many rattles and interesting noises that come out of nowhere, seemingly. The kid makes cat sounds, there’s a weird “death rattle” and so on. The sound editing seems really effective in this regard, as it combines with some odd and eerie visuals to make some twisted scenes become more frightening than they ever had a right to be.
Still, despite some genuine scares and some creepy moments, The Grudge loses much of its momentum due to too much time shifting and too little by way of performances or captivating script. The end result is a typical horror film that tries to do something different by winds up using every trick in the book to make an insignificant dent in the genre.
Trailer:
It’s interesting – I found myself agreeing with almost all your points, but I actually really liked this film, so I guess I disagreed with your final analysis. I thought the non-linear method was effective and helped evoke a sense of the timelessness of the curse. Also, I found the way it continually returned to the scene of the crime really highlighted the inevitability and claustrophic feel of the film.
At any rate, I enjoyed your review and think your site looks very well done.
You know, it did have a good feel that demonstrated the inescapable nature of the curse. In a way, the film could almost work as a meditation on guilt or on how the dead never rest — something along those lines.
Overall, I just found it too inconsistent in its approach and in its method.
Thanks for the comments!