Director:
Takeshi Shimizu

Cast:
Sarah Michelle Geller
Jason Behr
Grace Zabriskie
Ryo Ishibashi

Official URL:

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thegrudge

Country: USA
Rating: PG-13
Studio Name: Sony Pictures
Running Time: 1 hr 36 mins
Release Date: October 22, 2004

Critics's Rating:
(2 Reels) 

October 22, 2004

By Veronica Mixon

In the American adaptation of a popular Japanese film, Ju-On, a stranger in a foreign land learns that she can’t fight indigenous evil spirits. The Grudge stars former teen vampire slayer, Sarah Michelle Geller of TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fame as Karen, an American living and working as a caregiver for a house-bound woman when she encounters a dark raging spirit in a remote neighborhood in Tokyo. “I just want her to leave me alone!” says Karen’s patient (Grace Zabriskie) in the only moment she slips out of her trance. What Karen sees terrifies her so much that she’s unable to forget it. The Grudge is a scary ghost tale that misses something in the translation over the Pacific!

The most interesting part of The Grudge is the circular path in which the story unfolds. When Karen arrives at the house, the patient’s family and former nurse has disappeared. The film relies on loud telephones, noises in the antic, a cranky black cat and an inky black pool of water in a bathtub to create frightening moments in a narrative about a house cursed after a double homicide. It is riveting in the beginning. The rage that the victim felt consumes anyone it encounters and the American occupants don’t have a clue. Karen is so engrossed in the house that she draws in her boyfriend (Jason Behr “Roswell”) into danger.

As star of the popular TV series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Sarah Michelle Geller got a chance to kick butt in a sophisticated supernatural world where girls were recognized heroines. The big difference between Japanese and American film – girls are simply victims. So, Gellar is reduced to running around dark passages of the house after piecing together a rather unfortunate tale of a romantic crush that ignited a murderous jealousy. The rage is borne of horror, violence and blood – and a quiet passivity in Japanese culture. A Japanese police detective (Ryo Ishibashi) explains ‘the curse’ to Karen. Then he shrugs and apologies to her for the inevitable events that will take place. Americans always try to fight off the approaching doom but this doesn’t seem to be one of the tenets of Japanese horror films. Ju-on is a critical hit overseas so I believe the problem is the transference (like The Ring) in Hollywood. This reviewer has a low threshold for fear so I found parts of the film scary but another reviewer said the scariest trans-Pacific remake he’d seen was “Shall We Dance!” So, it’s possible that true horror fans might be a bit disappointed.

It’s a shame that Sarah Michelle Geller’s first adult role on the big screen is so timid. Before gaining fame as Buffy, the talented actress played a sexy, conniving temptress in Cruel Intentions and the girl-next-door in the Scooby Doo feature series opposite her husband of two years, Freddie Prinze Jr. She’s also appeared in Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer and spent a number of years on the daytime television drama, “All My Children.” Geller has the acting chops for a scary thriller but this isn’t it. Unfortunately, the rigid script doesn’t require that she do much even though she has the meatiest part.

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