Movie Review: The Grudge

The Grudge ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Nicolas Pesce   

Written by: Nicolas Pesce and Jeff Buhler based on the original screenplay by Takashi Shimizu.

Starring: Andrea Riseborough (Detective Muldoon), John J. Hansen (Burke), Demián Bichir (Goodman), Lin Shaye (Faith Matheson), John Cho (Peter Spencer), Betty Gilpin (Nina Spencer), Jacki Weaver (Lorna Moody), Frankie Faison (William Matheson), William Sadler (Detective Wilson), Tara Westwood (Fiona Landers), Junko Bailey (Kayako Ghost), David Lawrence Brown (Sam Landers), Zoe Fish (Melinda Landers).

 

I never liked any of The Grade movies – either from Japan or America. They always seemed like a cheap knock-off of the superior The Ring (or Ringu) movies, and even those aren’t masterpieces, just highly effective shock films – at least the first time through. By comparison, The Grudge films always seemed like a series of cheap jump scares, with images of Japanese ghosts with long hair, making weird noises, that never did much for me. When The Grudge films stopped being made – or at least released theatrically – I felt relief that this not very good franchise was finally behind us. But, of course, studios don’t let IP stay buried – they need to keep capitalizing on it, so here we are again – another The Grudge movie. It is somewhat surprising to me to report then that this latest one is probably the best Grudge movie I have seen. That doesn’t make it good exactly – but I think perhaps this is as good as this franchise can get.

 

The director this time in Nicolas Pesce, who has made art house horror before now with the very disturbing and visually striking The Eyes of My Mother, and the strange Piercing. I didn’t think either of those were great – but there was such promise to both of them (especially the former) that I full believe that Pesce can, and hopefully will, make a great horror movie one day. The Grudge isn’t it – but it’s also better than it has any right to be. Basically, I kind of feel that if Pesce had been able to make his own film here – and not be saddled with the expectations of a Grudge movie, this could have been very good – what he brings to it works, what the franchise brings, does not.

 

The film is once again about a vengeful Japanese spirit, who haunts anyone who comes in contact with it. This time, an American nurse brings it home with her from a stint in Japan – and over the course of a decade, it haunts anyone who enters the house at 44 Reyburn – eventually killing them all. The film follows Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough), a newly single mother after the death of her husband, who starts a new job, with a new partner (Demian Bichir – apparently auditioning for the next season of True Detective). Their first case involves a dead body in a car – it’s been there for months – with a connection to 44 Reyburn. Bichir worked the original cases there – but never entered the house. Something just felt wrong there. Muldoon doesn’t heed that warning though – and does indeed enter the house. And, over the course of the movie, we’ll flash back to previous people unlucky enough to enter – real estate agents/spouses John Cho and Betty Gilpin, a long married couple Frankie Faison and Lin Shaye, a compassionate Dr. Death Jacki Weaver, Bichir’s old partner, William Sadler, and the original family with the nurse mother returning from Japan.

 

What’s interesting about the film is how much in pain all of these people are in before they enter the house. Whether it’s the death of a husband, the impending death of a longtime spouse, news about a baby with potential birth defect, etc, everyone who steps into the house is already haunted by death – either in the recent past, or coming up in the near future. One of them even enters the house knowing its weird connection with death – hoping that it will give them a chance even after death. These are not just characters lined up for the slaughter.

 

Of course, though, Pesce has to deliver what audiences expect from a Grudge film – and he does. There are many cheap jump scares, some effective, some not – lot of groaning noises, etc. Of course there is a little girl with a lot of hair, and nothing ends well for anyone. Watching the film, I was always frustrated when Pesce had to deliver what was expected of him – especially as he has to wind things up in the end. So much of it seems like the demands of a studio, rather than what was organic to the movie itself. There is a good movie in this version of The Grudge – it just needed to jettison everything that makes it a Grudge movie at all.