The Grudge

In Tokyo, when the American student Karen Davis (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is called by a Japanese social support agency to replace her Japanese colleague Yoko (Yoko Maki) in the assistance of the American sick woman Emma (Grace Zabriskie), she realizes that something supernatural lives in the huge house. Inspector Nakagawa (Ryo Ishibashi) investigates a series of deaths of visitors of the subjected house, and based on a Japanese belief, he convinces himself that the place is cursed.

"The Grudge" is a different movie of haunted house. I have not had the chance to see the original "Ju-on: The Grudge" yet, but this story is much related to Japanese culture. The beginning of the film makes reference to a Japanese saying about rage, which is unknown in Western cultures. The non-linear screenplay works reasonably, but could be better and better. It gives me the impression that something is missing to be a great movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Grito" ("The Scream")

I saw this movie on satellite. I originally started to watch it because I was curious to see what Buffy the Vampire Slayer was up to now.

Thirty minutes...or maybe less...into the movie, I was hooked. For sheer skin-crawling creepiness, this film is near the top of my list. Unfortunately, it was on so late that I had to go to bed right after it was over. I didn't sleep well that night. One of my sons had seen it before, in a theater, and now I could understand his reluctance to go up into the attic of our house. More is implied than is explicitly shown in this movie, which makes the few explicit moments all the more scary. But the implied stuff will work its way into the darker recesses of your imagination and last longer, so that for a while afterward you'll have an aversion to stairwells, elevators, small children, train rides...and dark attics. If you like a good horror film, I can heartily recommend this one. The only complaint I had about it was the ending, which seemed a little too Western for a remake of a Japanese film.

"The Grudge" is quite possibly the most scariest ghost/horror movie I have ever seen. Sarah Michelle Gellar takes on the main role as nurse Karen living and working in Tokyo. While working she is exposed to a supernatural curse involving a vengeful spirit which locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming his/her life and spreading its curse to another person.

This movie starts out with Karen moving to Tokyo with boyfriend Doug (Jason Behr), where we get a taste of drama as they adjust to their new lives in Japan. The suspense builds when they encounter mysterious events in the house Karen is a caretaker in and, what follows, are one creepy moment one after the other as main ghosts Kayako (Takako Fuji) and Toshiro (Yuya Ozeki) take center stage, wreaking havoc with those unfortunate enough to cross its path.

Takashi Shimizu did a great job directing the movie that grabs the audience attention with scenes that send chills down your spine, has moments that make you jump, and has disturbing images that will stick in your mind after the movie is over. The mysterious yet dramatic atmosphere of the movie created an eerie feeling of the ongoing horror and the built-up suspense, which are contributed by the cast members' realistic and dramatic acting. Some of the plot lines dangled and are unexplained, but that is a minor flaw.

Overall, this is a movie with the right balance of horror and drama - no over-the-top stuff. If you are a fan of horror movies, "The Grudge" is highly-recommended.

Grade B+

'The Grudge' isn't the best horror film and it isn't the scariest either, but there's something about it that always manages to get to me. From the very first scene, which is appropriately bizarre, to the last, 'The Grudge' is a very creepy movie and I can't quite put my finger on why.

It is successfully unnerving partly due to the eerie and tense atmosphere that surround the whole story. There are a few jump scares but nothing that will scare the average horror fan, but it does have the ability to make you feel uneasy and does a good job at building and maintaining tension.

'The Grudge' is nothing special or new and there are certainly scarier horror films out there, but it does have the ability to put the viewer on edge every now and then. I've seen it several times and it still creeps me out.

This review is really a word of warning, if you've seen any of the earlier Japanese versions of this story you've seen this movie before. If you've seen all four of the earlier films, you've really seen everything (except the frightening opening with Bill Pullman) and you'd best wait for home video.

I understand that the film makers wanted to make sure that this film worked and made them money, so they repeated what worked, even casting the same Japanese actors for the kid and other roles; but it would have been nice if they had done more that was new beyond the opening sequence.

This isn't to say that the film is bad, its not, rather, its just that unless you're walking in to the film fresh odds are you're going to be like me and know what each five or ten minutes is going to bring because of the set up of the sequence.

For me it was a 6 out of 10, for fresh eyes probably higher.