I went into The Grudge expecting a Ring-esque horror film and this is one thriller that is never satisfied, and it won’t be satisfied unless it tries to scare you every second. The Grudge is a relentless pursuit of ways to scare the audience including creaking stairways, slowly opened doors, a bit under the covers, shower scenes and so much more.
Japanese director Takashi Shimizu takes you on a wild trip he is all-to-familiar with, as he brings his popular Japanese horror stories to American audiences. The Grudge is the fifth time Shimizu has told the story of his spooky house in which the central focus of is the idea that if someone dies in massive state of anger, they are not altogether dead as a curse is left behind that never manages to forgive or forget whatever misgiving caused the original anger. Does that make sense?
Now, I think we can all agree that creepy little kids in horror movies are scary, and this movie has a little kid that I would never, ever… ever, ever, ever want inside my house. As he whines like a cat and just overall creeps the hell out of you, on top of that if you happened to catch the uncut version of The Exorcist, while this little down the stairs scene isn’t as good, you wouldn’t want to be on the bottom.
I was happy to see that this movie was not about acting at all, and only about scaring. People in my screening of the film were screeching at the smallest things, including someone suddenly slipping and even once Miss Gellar drew a gasp.
This movie reminded me a lot of last year’s Japanese horror flick The Eye, which manages to use not only the visual aspect to scare the wits out of you but also the use of surround sound. The Grudge has creaks, cracks and all the bumps in the night you can handle.
If you sit back and think about this film you can see so much of other scare films in it, and whether it is an homage or just the pure case of using proven techniques the filmmakers have done their job.
Gentleman if you want to scare the hell out of your girl and have her in your lap by the time the movie is over this is the one to see this Halloween. Definitely check out Saw for the gore, but the frights start here.
