Review of The Grudge (2004) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

I'd say that the most comparable movie of its type, to this (that I can think of anyway) is The Ring and if I were to compare the two, The Ring is a better movie, in my opinion. This movie is a horror/thriller which very much relies on the constant sinister element to keep you on your toes, to keep you watching. There's heavy use of violins to create the suspense, the buildings seem quite sort of 'clinical', there's alot of greys, alot of dark shots where your left trying to follow the line of sight of the characters on screen, searching for clues as to where the sinister noise is coming from, although it isn't just the strange noises that peak the interest but you can tell the characters on screen feel compelled somehow to follow some intangible aura...creepy, huh? ehh..I do tend to be sceptical of these sorts of movies but having seen a few, I really don't think this is among the best. I kept watching the movie yet I kept feeling that I simply 'wasn't buying it', which is for a variety of reasons, which I'll explain now.

I'd say that the first reason for this is that the story, as it unravelled, became confusing to me - I say this in as much as the scenes kept cutting between different time frames and I found it hard to keep track of the timeline. I thought the characters and the roles they played were also a bit unclear at times, although that may be more down to me not keep proper track.

I also didn't find it very believable (surprise, surprise(!)) in terms of Karens ability to escape the situations she found herself in. I do like a good thriller that grabs you and you feel compelled to follow it through to see the final outcome for the main character, the good guy/gal but I only bedgrudginly watched it through to the end as it reached a point where it felt quite predictable and I could have guessed the ending.

Another issue for me was when the 'curse', this sinister element was shown visually on screen - maybe I'm a bit harsh as a critic but I have to say, I found it more comical than genuinely scary. It may have been better if they hadn't included the ocassional scene showing the 'deathly' or 'otherwordly' figure, it kind of spoiled it for me a bit - in movies such as The Blair Witch Project, it works due to the fact that its up to us, the viewer, to have an image in our minds of what this unspeakable horror is but we get a few too many glimpses in this movie and I simply didn't feel that it worked well.

What I think did work pretty well were some of the shocked faces, the stoney, lifeless expressions that appeared throughout. Unfortunately, overall I feel there's little credibility to make up for it really - it has quite an American feel to it and knowing it was based on a Japanese/Asian original, this is another of those movies where you hear that the original is much better than whats seen by some as a lazy remake making use of a popular cast to basically partially guarantee revenue - I imagine the original is alot scarier, with a higher age rating to reflect that. I'd say that this movie doesn't scare me but thats not to say that it couldn't instill fear in other people, it does have a bit of a sinister feel to it and some scenes would certainly scare if not disturb younger viewers, so I would definitely not encourage children to watch it, but if this type of movie is your 'kinda thing', I'd say there are better examples out there.

It seems only fair to mention, after the criticism I've given towards the film, that I didn't feel compelled to switch it off, there was something about it which was rather eery and peaked my interest somewhat, although I didn't by any means feel like I was right at the edge of my seat, I did follow it through to the end and as such I feel it would be perhaps a bit harsh to give it a 1 star rating. I'm also aware that movies like this with this sort of story aren't entirely my cup of tea (I do wonder why I keep watching them I suppose but even so, I recognise what I believe to be better made examples of this type of movie) but others can get more 'into them' and as such, I'm going to slightly give it the benefit of the doubt and issue it with a 2 star rating but given I've seen similar movies which I felt more 'involved with' and I felt had a more original plot, I just can't say that this is worth considering above them, so I have to give it a low rating.