The Grudge (2020)

[baumer]

Discuss

[CJohn]

What the fuck happened here. You had Nicolas Pesce and Sam Raimi on the creative side and an absolutely insane cast for a horror movie in front of the cameras. In the end, you get a boring and slow horror movie with little to no scares, way too overcrowded with unmemorable characters and with way too many timelines and an unsatisfying ending.

 

I wonder if we will get what went wrong articles from the trades, because something certainly went wrong here during production. 

 

I also only realized this was only 90 minutes long. I legit thought it was 2 hours lmao. Shit just wouldn't end and nothing was happening most of the time.

Edited January 5, 2020 by CJohn

[nick64]

https://grabyourseat.wordpress.com/2020/03/23/the-grudge-2020-film-review/

 

When a reboot of The Grudge was announced as the first film of 2020, I was mildly optimistic. Sure, January is typically a dumping ground and reboots fail more often than they succeed, but there were some positive signs. The last few years’ inaugural horror films (Insidious: The Last Key and Escape Room), while certainly not masterpieces, were completely watchable; producer Sam Raimi was on a bit of a hot streak with Don’t Breathe and Crawl; and writer-director Nicolas Pesce was one of the most promising new auteurs on the indie horror scene. So was my optimism misplaced?

 

To answer that, let’s take a quick look at the history of the series and one of its closest competitors, The Ring. Both The Grudge (or Ju-on, its original title) and The Ring (Ringu) got their start as Japanese horror films. After they saw success, a nearly identical but still very good American remake hit the States in the early 2000s. These were each followed by a decent sequel and then a number of terrible direct-to-video cash grabs. They even had a crossover! In 2017, The Ring series returned to theaters with a reboot-sequel known as Rings, and it turned out to be the dumpster fire it looked like. But even with the behind-the-scenes talent of Pesce and Raimi, 2020’s The Grudge still couldn’t avoid the curse of its sister series.

 

This “sidequel” to 2004’s The Grudge begins with the Landers family, whose matriarch receives the curse of Kayako Saeki (Junko Bailey returns in a disappointingly short cameo) while on a business trip in Tokyo. Two years later, the newly widowed Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) and her young son move to a small town in Pennsylvania, where Muldoon is put on the case of a torched body found in a car crash. She manages to link the body to a series of other deaths, all of which are seemingly tied to the old Landers house. Muldoon must piece together the mystery while coping with the strange visions she’s had since stepping into the house herself.

 

If something seemed odd to you while reading that summary, you might be able to see where The Grudge so crucially fails: it sets itself up as a mystery, but gives you the answers before even posing the question. So rather than working with Detective Muldoon to figure out what’s going on, you’ll mostly sit there bored waiting for the next scare. This structural issue isn’t just evident in the overly expository dialogue, but is a symptom of a much greater issue. Too often the film tries to harken back to the original in ways that don’t work. For example, the informative pre-title cards spoil the mystery for newcomers, the spirits make croaking noises despite not being strangled like Kayako was, some scenes are set up simply to call back to scares from the original, and, worst of all, the film features jumping timelines despite the story not supporting them. When we already know the outcome of each flashback subplot, all sense of urgency disappears, as does the audience’s attention.

 

It’s a shame that this film is so fundamentally flawed on a story level, because it’s actually quite good technically. As previously mentioned, Nicolas Pesce is a genuinely talented horror director. He knows how to build a suitably chilling atmosphere with the proper lighting, staging, and use of the Newton Brothers’ excellent score. There are some beautifully framed shots that will stick with you even when the story doesn’t, so there is at least a decent chance you’ll get spooked a few times before it’s over. In addition, the film sports an impressive ensemble cast that mostly works. Riseborough is fine in the workmanlike main role, as is Demián Bichir as her partner, but John Cho and Betty Gilpin are wonderful as a realtor couple dealing with a personal crisis, and Lin Shaye steals the show as the current owner of the house, who suffers from dementia. Surprisingly, the usually wonderful Jacki Weaver is woefully miscast as an assisted suicide specialist, and the child performances are quite wooden, but the cast works well overall.

 

With so much talent evident on screen, it becomes really frustrating when the film resorts to the most amateur horror tricks in the book. When you can properly build atmosphere, there is no need to resort to jump scares, but this film does it anyway and does it way too often. Additionally, there are hints of a much more interesting story, but the film ignores those threads to focus on the “mystery” storyline. There are characters dealing with dementia, the loss of a husband/father, concerns about the afterlife, obsession, whether or not to have a child born with a rare disease, euthanasia, etc. Rather than take the time to flesh out any of these weighty issues, the movie decides to give us “detective looks through files”. Exciting!

 

In conclusion, it often feels like The Grudge isn’t sure what it wants to be. It wants to maintain a connection with the original films, but wants to be different at the same time. It strays far enough away from the originals that diehard fans will be disappointed, but spends enough time on series tropes and callbacks that casuals won’t care for the new story being presented. It’s competent, but also lazy. It’s a slow burn, but not deep enough. Add this all up and you get a boring film that thinks it’s better than it is and leaves no one happy.

 

C-

Edited March 24, 2020 by nick64