Bravo! For about four years now I have been complaining about how Hollywood has been missing the target when it comes to horror movies.
I mean horror movies have become a joke in Hollywood; down right laugh-a-thons.
What made horror movies so great was the use of make-up, a good story, a bone chilling use of the movie score, but most of all the ability to scare the ever-living daylights out of the audience.
Horror movies nowadays use very gritty and choppy CGI, have a lackluster story filled with plot holes, and have the ability to scare the audience, not with the story, but with the fact that they paid $8.50 to see a horrible movie, not a horror movie. This is why I say bravo to The Grudge.
The Grudge stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is finally breaking away from her “Buffy” role, Jason Behr, from Roswell fame, Bill Pullman, Mr. President from Independence Day, Takakon Fuji and Yuya Ozeki, who starred in the original Japanese version Ju-on: The Grudge.
Karen (Gellar) is an American college student who moved to Japan to study abroad. While in Japan she volunteers at a care center, which puts her in position to care for the woman whose house is center to the storyline.
There she is exposed to the curse that is haunting this house. Once the curse sees you, you are trapped into the powerful rage and it doesn’t let you go until you stop it, or die.
Karen who “somehow” survived the curse (for the time being) goes and investigates what really happened at the house.
A nice touch was the telling of the story, which can get confusing only if you’re not paying attention. The back and forth between the present and the past reminded me of a theatre play.
The real money maker is the direction of the movie. The original director of The Grudge was asked to direct the remake of the American version.
As said before (and probably a couple of more time before this article ends) this movie will scare you. The director, Takashi Shimizu, uses a blend of quick cuts, loud noises at the perfect time, and strange noises to creep out the audience.
While watching the movie, there were moments when the audience let out screams of fright.
The Grudge has everything you want in a horror movie. It has a good and relatively easy story to follow. Great use of make-up and (shutting me up) good use of CGI.
But most of all, this movie scares the living crap out of you. From beginning to end, this movie keeps you at the edge of your seat and has the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.
I’m glad they kept the original Japanese director, who also wrote the screenplay. Shimizu knew what to do and how to scare people.
With keeping the director, Hollywood also kept alive the vision of what Shimizu had with both versions, something The Ring has now picked up on (the original director of Ringu is now doing the American version of The Ring 2).
From now on, when Hollywood makes a horror movie they should watch The Grudge first.
Bravo to The Grudge for putting fear back into the dying Hollywood horror genre.

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