Flak Magazine: Review of The Grudge, 11.02.04

It may be that Hollywood remakes are like a snake eating its own tail — it seems unpalatable, but it can still yield some interesting shapes. The Grudge is certainly one of them. It is, in fact, probably the scariest incarnation of them all, the one where the snake actually swallows itself.

The Grudge maintains considerable integrity for a remake, probably because it's more of a revisiting: The movie is directed by its original director, Takashi Shimizu, who has tackled the material not once but four times prior as both director and writer. This enormously creepy yet clumsily titled Japanese series consists of two straight-to-video cheapies, Ju-on and Ju-on 2, and two subsequent theatrical features, Ju-on: The Grudge and Ju-on: The Grudge 2. (This new film is based on Ju-on: The Grudge.) So, pending success, The Grudge has a built-in franchise. And while the studio suits love that, they might not be counting on the distinct differences with which Japanese filmmakers tackle the horror genre. Or how an American producer and otaku like Sam Raimi, an American screenwriter (Stephen Susco) and an American editor (Jeff Betancourt) won't necessarily overcome the modes of myth and storytelling of a culture detached from the gaijin dramatic trinity of Aristotle, Shakespeare and Syd Field.

The Grudge's thin, episodic story remains remarkably faithful to the original, with most changes being on the surface to accommodate the mostly American cast (and, presumably, audience). It concerns an American exchange student (Sarah Michelle Gellar) who, in caring for an elderly woman (Grace Zabriskie) through the generically named "Care Center," comes into contact with a migrant curse — the grudge — which began with the violent deaths of a child named Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) and his mother Kayako (Takako Fuji) by the hand of the husband/father. The horror-movie catch is something about this curse, something about people dying in the grip of a powerful rage, something about that fury residing in the place where they died, something about people coming into contact with it — something about ghosts and dying.

All these somethings take the forms of two mangled, Butoh-like ghosts of Toshio and Kayako. Their creaking and meowing provide the movie's center and the climax to each of its set pieces. That's about it, though. Want to get into the backstory and an explanation of this grudge thing? You get a couple minutes that vaguely connect Kayako to Bill Pullman's cameo character and a scene (likely studio-ordered) of Ryo Ishibashi's detective character repeating the movie's title cards as if they're the fifth Noble Truth of Buddhism. For American moviegoers who live and die by Scream and its ludicrous "rules" of horror movies, this could be a mess. The only choice is to kill your inner Jamie Kennedy. Don't ask questions, because otherwise your left brain might interfere with the right-brain fear factor that Shimizu has a scary knack of tapping into.

Because there is some terrifying stuff in this movie — although you should expect that from a director on his fifth try. Shimizu transcends cliché "don't go in the attic!" moments by having Kayako and Toshio creeping up all over: in reflections, in the corners of the frame and in the most illogical, and thus scarier, places. He also deftly uses the technique that people usually attribute to Hitchcock and the old "bomb under the table" trick: Let people know something is coming, but don't give it to them until they are absolutely on edge. Kayako's guttural croak, sounding like the settling of her decrepit house, pops up at just the right times (and is often mixed into background noises) and rivals any Jaws entrance.

Some of the movie's imagery, however disturbing, is awfully familiar. It is, after all, a horror remake by way of a post-Ring Hollywood. In 1999, it would have been more about seeing the dead people, but instead we now have long black hair and jumpy ghost movement (as in The Ring), some phone and video techno-horror (as in, er, The Ring) and the overarching virus factor of this nebulous "grudge" (everyone loves a virus nowadays). Even Gellar's frantic Jessica Fletcher impersonation isn't anything new. However, when it becomes apparent that there are no rules, that these ghosts aren't limited to haunting only the house, that the phone won't ring in precisely seven days — this is when The Grudge turns sublimely unpredictable. The lack of logic — think of it rather as nightmare illogic — works in the movie's favor, allowing for the more visceral audience connection that great horror demands. Do we ever really know exactly why in The Exorcist Pazuzu possessed little Regan? No, because it could happen to anybody at anytime. The fear of the unknown, the fear of death — that's the essence of horror movies. Explanation not included.

Yet for the American critical establishment this is still a major no-no. Complaints about "character," "sympathy," "logic" and good old "story" pop up in reviews. For all its entertaining jumps and creeps and crawls, the scariest thing about The Grudge is how quickly an audience dependent on linear narrative will dismiss it. And that would be its own kind of horrible death — one in which the film died, if not in the grip of rage, at least begrudgingly.

— Tony Nigro (tony@superheronamedtony.com)