 Movie
Reviews
with Evelyn Gough
The Grudge (M)
Directed by Takashi Shimizu
 Eye of the beholder... Bill Pullman stars in The Grudge.
Hollywood filmmakers may be running out of original ideas and turning to Japan for inspiration, but there's nothing particularly original about The Grudge to begin with. It's just a rip-off of many far creepier horror films, most notably The Ring, which also originated in Japan. That's not to say I wasn't scared - I spent most of this movie with my hands over my eyes and squealing every time anything jumped on the screen, but I'm the first to admit that I'm a wuss when it comes to scary movies.
But a lot of things jumped - the writers relied heavily on shock tactics to get the audience screaming. Their time would have been better spent coming up with a more satisfying story.
You couldn't get a more basic plot than this: a murdered family become ghosts with a major grudge against anyone who enters the house they were killed in. Result? A lot of people die. That's it!
What's interesting about this version is that the original film's Japanese director was asked to direct the Hollywood remake. And instead of moving the action to the United States, they stayed with the Tokyo setting and retained several of the original Japanese cast, including the two actors who play the ghosts.
So why bother? Well, to appeal to the massive US teen market and put bums on seats they needed a Hollywood heroine. So who better than history's cutest vampire slayer to kick some Jap ghost butt. Not that Sarah Michelle Gellar's character Karen does much kicking – she spends most of the film looking terrified. And who wouldn't be frightened? These ghosts don't discriminate, they hate everybody!
Despite such afterlife misanthropy, the Gellar ploy has worked - the movie has been a huge success and a sequel has the green light.
Which probably helps answer the following obvious questions: will it be sayonara for Karen and her cute boyfriend Doug (Jason Behr)? What about the rest of the top-notch but under-utilised support cast (some people will do anything for money) of Bill Pullman, Grace Zabriski and Ted Raimi? Will they make it out alive? Just don't bear a grudge against me if you're disappointed.
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