The Grudge

Review by Colin Moore

Is it just me, or are film goers opening up to the idea of horror without machetes? I suppose I'm looking at things from a post 80s North American perspective, where childhood recollections barely stretch back past Freddy Kruger.

The days of slash and impalement have always been there haven't they? Personally, I consider myself blessed to have had The Shining terrorize my youth, but today's adolescent brat pack have more of an adjustment to make.

Somewhere between 1987 and now, Teen Union Local 667 initiated the most aggressive collective bargaining campaign for hiked allowance payments ever. Kids suddenly had money, their tastes had worth, the Industry slapped itself awake and it's been American Pie and Avril Lavigne ever since.

Now horror has a new face as East Asia parts the ropes and bounces in the "Ringu". The Grudge comes on the heels of another American remake of a Japanese horror sensation, Ringu, which did for television and VHS what The Grudge does for long hair and closets.

Interestingly enough, this Grudge comes from the original "Ringu" producer and "Ju-On" (the Japanese Grudge) director Takashi Shimizu, who here remakes his own original film.

The story? As simple as most in its genre. An American social worker living in Japan is assigned to care for a bed-ridden woman when her first caregiver goes missing. Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) plays Karen, the social worker assigned to the home. Beyond a really thorough cleaning and a change of bedclothes, the place seems pretty normal.

But....dum dum dum, there is evil here. It takes the form of a family of three killed three years earlier by its jealous husband and father. So what grudge do they hold? None that I can see, other than the fact that they're dead and everyone else isn't.

The story explains the title by a long held Japanese wives-tale which basically states that unresolved pain and anguish isn't going anywhere. It shows. The ghost of the young boy mulls about screeching like a cat, while the murdered mom keeps busy crawling around the house in the same jarring stop-motion style that rocked our worlds in The Ring.

The Grudge throws us a bucket full of characters, all with about 30 minutes less screen time than it takes to really care whether or not they get sucked up into an attic. I suspect Shimizu knew this.

The Grudge (love that word) is less about these folks than about how they fit into this round of the curse. It's an approach to scarefare we've seen before in The Ring, and one that is still effective here.

The idea is this: victims are no longer punished for their sins or the sins of loved ones (Jason drowned at the neglect of other Crystal Lake campers; Freddy was killed by a group of vigilante parents). They are doomed for no other reason than they found evil, they wandered across its path.

You've come into the house, you're screwed.

Half the fun is waiting to see how and when these characters get it. Whether or not they figure out the mystery behind the cursed house is irrelevant to their fate, but they don't know that. But we do, though typically we hold out false hope anyway. Suckers.

Horror films have taken their share of innocents over the years, but victims have at least shown a partial penchant for sin: alcohol, little weed perhaps, flash of a breast here, a butt cheek there. The Grudge avoids all traces of this. Sexual contact maxes out at a bedroom kiss, drugs are nowhere to be found, and the reason for the family's murder comes down to a mere statement that the wife is in love with another man. There's no affair, no cheating even.

Of course, coming from a culture where on screen infidelity is as common as coffee and muffin combos, what do you expect? Now evil can belong to everyone, sex crazed teen or not. Ahh, equality.

This film's victims are conservative by Hollywood horror standards, which makes their situation all the more disturbing. The gap between character and viewer is narrowed dramatically, and so, for anyone as plain as I am, it's all the easier to watch these people and say "these folks aren't so hot....they're pretty normal....I'm pretty normal......oh crap".

Speaking of, not since winter mornings at the cottage have women crawling around in full length bedclothes and dark scraggly hair been so terrifying. Again it's a gimmick we've seen before in The Ring, but it still freaks. And why not? We've been stalked for so long by masked men in mechanic overalls, that it's only fair to give women and children a shot.

Shimizu does a decent job of unsettling us with sneeks and peeks of ghostly hands and faces (the spine will tingle). He's definitely a less is more director, who chooses carefully how much he wants to show us and when he wants to show it. It gives the feeling of being psychologically prodded rather than obviously hacked away at. For the most part it works. Soon you feel as out of place as the film's foreigners, in a world unlike your own, in a house you have no business being in. Where's a bloke to turn?

All in all, a good take on an old idea, though now it's official.....westerners aren't the only ones stupid enough to investigate sounds of children playing in a dark empty house. Somethings will never change.

3.5 out of 5

The Grudge
Australian release: Thursday November 18th
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Clea DuVall, Bill Pullman, KaDee Strickland.
Director: Takashi Shimizu.
Website: Click here.

Brought to you by MovieHole