Sony Pictures
The first weekend in January lately has been a place for low budget horror films. Last year, Escape Room was released and the year before that it was Insidious: The Last Key. This year we get a reboot of the ‘Grudge’ series, simply titled, The Grudge. The first American ‘Grudge’ film was released in 2004 and was a remake of the 2002 Japanese horror film, Ju-On: The Grudge. Last week was the first time I saw the original ‘Grudge’ film and I found it to be both creepy and dull. I wasn’t too excited to see the reboot, but I was hoping for a fun theater experience since it was the last Friday before I had to go back to work after having a Christmas break. I didn’t get that fun theater experience I wanted.
A detective (Andrea Riseborough) investigates a murder scene that has a connection to a case that her new partner handled in the past. Much like the 2004 horror film, the killings that happened in the house pass on a ghostly curse to anyone who enters it. Many people from Jacki Weaver to John Cho enter the house and are affected from there on.
The Grudge lacks any sort of excitement or chills. The movie is unoriginal in its storytelling and scares. Most of the scares, if you can consider them that, felt ripped out of previous horror films just like The Grudge. They are all something we have seen before and they are predictable as well. The film is so focused on trying to recreate certain sequences from its predecessor that it couldn’t stand on its own.
The first film had a sense of paranoia when anyone entered the haunted house. The paranoia and terror of a haunted house was ripped away from this film. The film told us several times that the house was haunted and that anyone who entered would be affected by it, but the film failed to deliver on that premise. Several times within the film I thought it could have been an isolated thriller, but the house and storyline didn’t go that route.
Lin Shaye, from the ‘Insidious’ franchise, stars in this movie as one of the residents of the haunted house. I would say that she is the only good thing about this movie. She is creepy and provides most of the fun moments within the film. I also didn’t mind John Cho’s character. Cho is a great actor and although his storyline wasn’t developed well, he was the only character I cared about when it came to him entering the house.
The Grudge is a film I didn’t care much about. It lacked any sort of thrills or chills. I am not too fond of the 2004 film either, but that one was much better than this. I heard Netflix would be creating a series based on the Japanese horror film. I would like to check that out as well as the horror films that are deemed way more terrifying than the American films.
The Grudge has a run time of 1 hour 34 minutes and is rated R for disturbing violence and bloody images, terror and some language.
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