As of this writing, The Grudge is the best film of the decade. Of course, by that logic, it is also the worst film of the decade as well. I hope it turns out to be much closer to the latter or we are in for one loooooooong decade of movies.
I am fascinated by the choice of things we appropriate from Japanese culture. Train efficiency? Good gas mileage? Low-fat diets? Not so much. But Godzilla and random horror films?! We are all over that. By my count, this is the fourth American remake/sequel of the 2002 mildly horrific Ju-on: The Grudge, a film about a ghost kid in the bathtub who just wants to play with you until you’re dead, too. In this version, the ghost/spirit/curse has earned some frequent flier miles, traveling all the way from a Japanese sound set to Pennsylvania.
For reasons only known to the producers, this version of The Grudge is set in 2004 … and 2006 … and 2004 again … and 2005. This is one of those films that needs either a helpful program or chronological chart. The central plot, I think, is in 2006 with Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) investigating a car crash/death in the woods. It’s clear from the crime scene the driver has been dead for at least a year. Detective Muldoon follows a link to 44 Reyburn Drive, an address her superior (Demián Bichir) won’t touch because it has a bad vibe. (The latter is an attribute you always look for in a chief of police, no? “Gonna check out the house where that couple got murdered, chief?” “Oh no, that place gives me the willies. Better just leave it unsolved.”)
At this point, The Grudge hasn’t lost me. But then Detective Muldoon investigates, finds a couple of scary ghosts and instead of calling the Scooby gang in, the film goes to a flashback, and then a flashback in a flashback, and then a flash-forward in a flashback in a flashback. Honestly, I lost flashtrack of the flashbacks. Point is, shit has gone down in this house for a while now. And it seems to take the form of the evil spirit realizing you’re in its house, so it starts messin’ with you. The evil spirit seems fairly indiscriminate with whom it
haunts, which reminds me of The Far Side cartoon where the newly unearthed mummy scolds, “Ok, let’s see … that’s a curse of you, a curse on you, and a curse on you.”
The rules for the The Grudge are, if I might go old school, wack. I don’t know who it represents. I don’t know what its limitations are, how it attaches itself, or why it seems more benevolent to some than others. Look, you can show me all the 44 Reyburn horror you want, but the truth is at least one old couple lived with the thing for a year, so how bad could it have been, really? It’s not like Mr. Grudge was a leaky pipe or an electricity issue, i.e. something that had to be addressed right away. No, the old couple just sorta lived with it.
In addition, the film wanted us to believe that the evil spirit attaches itself to anybody who visits the house. Well … between 2004 and 2006, the house was sold at least twice. Did Grudge not care about open house visitors? Did it not hold a grudge if you were just a Sunday lookie-loo?
I’m deliberately missing the point here. You judge horror by scares, not logic. And yet, scares come exactly from subject knowledge, else they’re meaningless. This film did have ½ a scare or two, mostly of the “turn around and something is there” variety. But let’s assume I’m being haunted by Grudge; if I get more than one scare in a sixty-second interval but come to no physical harm, don’t I just sort of get inured to it and maybe try to have a one-on-one with Grudge? “Dude, let’s talk.” I dunno. Maybe not. What I do know is this film was mildly scarier than Slender Man, but at least that film felt relatively unique. This one feels like somebody tried to make every Grudge film at once and succeeded in making none of them.
A Japanese plague-addled spirit
Comes to the states for a shitfit
Is this a vacay
Or are you here to stay?
Where is ICE when you need it?
Rated R, 94 Minutes
Director: Nicolas Pesce
Writer: Nicolas Pesce
Genre: Evil for the sake of evil
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Horror junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Anyone who respected the Japanese original
