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DVD The Grudge
It's not the scary hit that The Ring was in 2002, but The Grudge makes a similarly convincing case for American remakes of popular Japanese horror films. Barely a year passed between the release of Takashi Shimizu's creepy ghost story Ju-On: The Grudge and the production of this American remake, set in Tokyo and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar in her first post-Buffy horror film. About the only significant difference between the two films is the importing of a mostly-American cast (including Bill Pullman, Clea DuVall and Grace Zabriskie), but The Grudge was reconfigured (by screenwriter Stephen Susco) to allow Shimizu to refine and improve the spookiest highlights of his earlier version, which enjoyed previous incarnations as a short film and two made-for-Japanese-video features. Surprising box-office analysts with a $40 million opening weekend, The Grudge may disappoint hard-core horror fans because it lacks gore and graphic violence, but as a creepy tale about a very haunted house, it's guaranteed to send a few chills up your spine. --Jeff Shannon
Well, I saw the original first, which, eh, that one was okay too but this one was kind of a little less okay in some parts a little more okay in other parts. For one thing. Ugh, the acting was just really really bad. It made the movie as a whole just look like a really really low budget old godzilla movie. The script was just as bad.
However, like the godzilla movies, there's just something interesting about the plot that grabs you. Now the original grudge done in japan ju-on would've been better but it was a little dragged out and well, i'm too used to american special effects. low budget america and low budget japan are two different things. low budget america means cartoon like computer graphics that glow off the screen and looks like a joke, and japan low budget is like, home video camera and planets hanging from little strings. dont know how anime manages to rock so much with their graphics but i dont think their film industry's quite there yet.
anyway, so ju-on had too many random characters that all did their own thing and met up with the grudge. it was okay but kind of like reading a weekly comic book series with a new episode and adventure every week. so what america does is realize this and chop it up and cut out characters and shorten other characters parts to leave room for a main character and i'm left even more confused with the newer version than the original.
so now i'm complaining that ju-on dragged, and the grudge was a rushed chopped up piece of bad acted out liver with sarah michelle geller in it who really really disappointed me considering the fact that i know who she is and therefore i want to be impressed by a veteran actress and instead had to sit there thinking how old she was starting to look. that's bad. when i sit there just thinking that you're more wrinkled than you were in buffy that means you need to try harder.
however, this is why it gets three stars and not two or one. the japanese version didn't really go anywhere. it introduced the grudge concept. showed off the grudge concept. end. it just did it and that was it. the american version tried to tie it together a little and show why it happened and explained things in a more timely manner. basically like, lets unfold this mystery. this is the mystery building up. this is why. japan was kind of like. this is the grudge. growl. scare. roar. grudge. grrrr. end.
like i said. both movies kind of sucked. i liked it cause i like horror movies but ju-on impressed me more with the scary scenes even with the lesser special effects and comic book like pace and america kind of bored me in that way with the rushed chopped liver aspect. they just didn't reproduce the scary moments well enough and didn't come up with enough unique ones all on their own. but the end was a teeny tiny bit better in the american version. not the whole end. but the endish area was a little better. however, the bad part was america threw in a really cheap thing all of a sudden out of nowhere that america always does where the main character tries to be the hero whereas in the japanese version she was the victim only. end.
My whole point? good concept. done badly. japan's was better overall. should've tried harder or not at all. could've been great i think. they had the right idea to try a remake just didn't give it their all. they should've taken full advantage of our special effects because that's really sad that the planets hanging from little strings in a video camera impressed me more than our own computer graphics.
i also liked and hated the fact that it was also in japan. for godsake's why dont you just use the same freaking movie set and actors for crying out loud. geez. can't you be a little creative? not only are we gonna remake a movie almost word for word and image for image, lets make it in the exact same house, in the exact same city, in the exact same foreign language. its like, why'd you even bother with an american version if youre gonna make it in frickin japan. just so you could replace the main character for sarah michelle geller? geez, all you really had to do was glue and paste then.
Great horror movie
This is the scariest movie I've ever seen, and I seen Hilary Duff's "Raise Your Voice." This was so scary and Sarah Michelle Geller is a great actor. She's also great in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So buy, for all you scary movies fan. Yes.
Absolutely Scary, 'Grudge' Is No Easy Watch...
I remember when my mother watched this movie and thought it was one of the worst movies she ever watched. Still, I was tempted to test that idea that this was just a "clunky piece of trash" as my mom called it. I had never really watched many Japanese horror films besides the brilliant AUDITION, so I thought I would give this 'American' version of Ju-On: The Grudge a chance. What was my overall verdict? You'll find out later.
At the beginning of the movie we meet Peter, a likable guy who later commits suicide, but for what? We find that out later. Cut to the next frame of the film in which we meet Yoko...a sweet and gentle Japanese girl who is tending to the care of a rather distraught old woman. The woman seems to have a sleeping disorder, so most of the time she is either sleeping or she is awake but silent, never really speaking at all. We do learn why she's in the state later on, and believe me once you see why you too will be scared. Now Yoko is left to clean up the mess in that house (absolutely no one in my home would ever leave a mess like this, and there are several parts in the film when the house is in complete disarray). Yoko suddenly hears a noise in one of the rooms on the upper level of the house, a thumping on the ceiling. As she goes to investigate after opening the door to the attic, she discovers to her terror a ghastly girl (Yuya Ozeki in creepy form like her "Ju-On" role) who attacks her, and the film cuts from there.
Next up, we meet Karen and Doug (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Behr), two lovers and students studying abroad who seem very happy. Karen also works to help tend to the care of people much like Yoko was, and after the agency discovers her missing, Karen is placed in lieu of her mysterious departure. Karen goes to the house to to tend to the care of the woman, but she has no idea what she's in store for once she's there. You see, there's a curse on this house, and we don't know it at this point, but a family who lived in that house when through a deadly ordeal. The wife of the previous family had an affair with Peter (Bill Pullman's character, in top form here) and the husband found her out, so in a fit of rage, he drowned his son and murdered his wife before committing suicide. Karen has no idea that these events took place, but she will later. As time goes on, another family descends upon the house led by Jennifer (Clea Duvall, a rather disposable performance - she was better in The Faculty), who is rather depressed. The police are also investigating the disappearance of Yoko and some murders that have taken place, and they discover a jaw in the attic. Throughout the movie, anyone who comes into contact with "the curse" will ultimately be pursued by it until they are killed by its consumption. The moments in the high rise apartment are tense, but the scariest moment of the movie is when one of the agency workers is walking down the stairs and the beaten down Yoko appears, dragging herself towards the stairs going down. When the worker slowly heads in Yoko's direction, he slips on a substance on the floor...her blood. When he asks what happened, she turns around and reveals...oh, but I can't give it away. But let me say this, it scared me when I saw what happened to Yoko. The detective (Ryo Ishibashi) reveals the story behind the "curse" to Karen, and there are many moments in the movie where you will see flashbacks to the events that occured in the house. Later in the movie, Doug, disturbed by what's happened to Karen, who witnessed the "curse" firsthand, decides to go off investigating things in the house on his own. When Karen finds that out, she heads to the house where the climax comes into play. She relives moments of the past in the house, where Peter has come to find the mother hung by her neck and the child scared. Things aren't in a good state as Karen witnesses, but reality comes back into play and the scary girl is after Karen to kill her off.
In the final frame of the film, director Takashi Shimizu delivers a nice close. With the body of Doug under covers after his death, Karen goes to his body and sees for herself, but the "curse" seems to have found her and suddenly someone is standing behind her - the "curse" girl who has been tormenting some of the previous contacts and the film cuts with that rasping noise and the girl's creepy eyes. It's bound to make you look forward to next year's The Grudge 2, due out October 26.
In the meantime, the director's cut offers 8 minutes of unseen footage, and a plethora of extras. No doubt if you want to see a good remake of a classic Japanese horror film (JU-ON was scary), then THE GRUDGE should ultimately satisfy your appetite. While not a classic in its own merits, THE GRUDGE is the ultimate story of the worst kind of "curse" that could ever be left behind.
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