The Grudge, 2004

The Grudge, 2004
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Clea DuVall


Stage: Home theatre


The Grudge in short: Karen Davis is an American Nurse moves to Tokyo and encounter a supernatural spirit who is vengeful and often possesses its victims. A series of horrifying and mysterious deaths start to occur, with the spirit passing its curse onto each victim. Karen must now find away to break this spell, before she becomes its next victim.


Preps: none in perticular. Another one to follow in my movie line


Reality: Nothing is what it seems. In the movie, the basic plot is easily understood. The essence isn't. In a sense, that you absolutely don't have a clue, what is going on in the house. The whole horror is based on the viewer's imagination, which proves to be a great thing, only done by best horror japanese directors. In this piece, somehow american people are being mocked, I sense this in ways young girl is shown and ways she presumabely intelligently follows the mystery in the house.

In my opinion, a lot of blood doesn't make a horror movie. A lot of unseen and predicted scenes in the eyes of a beholder, well, this makes an excellent movie, filled with terrifying horror. Japanese are the experts in the field and I must admit I have never seen a truly great (remembering type) horror, done by an american director. No disrespect whatsoever, but I see that US is building horror on blood, whereas asian countries build on fear of unknown and unproved.

For this piece.. It is said that houses are being haunted sometimes and noone would like to experience something like that. Being a girl, alone, trapped in a house like that - the mere idea of this makes my blood chill.

Is the house secret revealed? Yes, to some extent it is. After leaving some bodies, burning imagination of a viewer, horrific music (in a good aspect as in a good horror movie) and a cat, running around, to make your body shiver in terror. Briliantly put two-dimensions between a cat transforming into a boy. The leftovers from prior life that went on in this house. The scene is obscure to the point that even a simple walk on the stairs seems difficult to handle (without something terrible happening inbetween).

I am more than impressed by the piece. And the fact, that I recognize "Nathan" from the series Lost, gives me a homerunning feeling.



My personal rating: 6,0 (for the sake of following japanese style of horror - it seems to be more effective than any american horror movie)

The Grudge on IMDB

The official site