The Grudge 2

Review by Clint Morris

If a horror film is deemed effective by how many yawns the spectator can evoke in the one sitting, then consider my boxers soaked to the tag.

If The Grudge (2004) – another of those bloody American remakes of better Hong Kong horror films – was only half-cooked, then the inevitable sequel is as unthawed as frozen potato wedges.

Glutton-for-punishment Takashi Shimizu – the director of the original Ju-On films – returns for a second time to pit pretty young American girls against repugnantly eerie Asian ghosts. The result? Not so much a nail-biting thriller as a film that’s entertainment value is surpassed by well, biting one’s nails.

Sarah Michelle Gellar (and her exorbitant fee) reprises her role as the heroine from the first film, just long enough to be thrown over the side of a building – Rick Rosenthal, director of Halloween Resurrection, is going to be looking for remuneration for that one – and for the torch to be passed onto Amber Tamblyn (a good little actress, who is much more deserving of better material than this – but money talks, I guess?), playing her younger sister.

It’s then up to Tamblyn – and a local journalist – to defeat the terribly irritating brute before everyone in its path (including a trio of girls from a local high school, fresh from visiting the house of the dead) ends up in a sarcophagus.

There’s a reason why movies like The Grudge and The Grudge 2 – referring of course to these lacklustre American versions, and not the rather imaginative Japanese films of which they’re inspired – exist and that’s for the hyperactive antsy teenager. It’s exactly the kind of film a bunch of fourteen or fifteen year olds will flock to on a Saturday afternoon because they see it as a free pass to make an unbearable-for-anyone-else-in-the-theatre ruckus. They don’t’ care that there’s no plot – there’s pretty girls, there’s screams, there’s loud music: they’re the choir for the film’s button-pushing soundtrack, if you will. Good taste, when it comes to films, does come with age it seems.

I don’t usually walk out of lot of films, because there’s generally something to keep you watching, but sadly that’s not the case here – and I headed for that exit sign about an hour into the movie. It is that bad. It is that dull. It is that insufferable. Like flushing money down a dirty drain.

Unless you’re a manic teenager that’s only headed to the theatre to talk to your friends, show off your new pretty mobile phone or throw popcorn at the girls in the front row – then avoid this one like herpes.

0.5 out of 5

The Grudge 2
Australian release: 26th October, 2006
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amber Tamblyn, Arielle Kebbel, Teresa Palmer, Jennifer Beals
Director: Takashi Shimizu
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