Review of The Grudge (2004) by Nathan R — 01 May 2017

Like most horror films, this one really makes no sense.

I will admit then when I first saw it many years ago, it haunted me for days, so there are some scenes in it that will stay with you. But certain other scenes that creeped me out back then only make me laugh or scratch my head now.

The idea of a ghost following you home to your apartment, calling you in the voice of your family member to chat with you for a second to convince you to open a door, project an image of said family member on the other side of said door's peephole, only to later crawl into that person's bed to scare them there later, which you sort of realize they can already do without needing you to open the door... that used to scare the crap out of me, but now it makes me chuckle, because now I can only think from the ghost's point of view, and how she/they go through all that trouble just to go "boo, gotcha". Most horror movies operate on this same stupid logic, but The Grudge seems almost famous for it. The entire movie is "boo, gotcha!".

Horror movies are effective because they confuse us and we don't quite "get" what is going on; something has to be out of the ordinary, and therefore, unsettling. Therefore, there need to be many scenes involving bizarre, weird stuff that doesn't normally happen. But if you think about it for more than a second, it's more silly than scary. And this movie is FULL of these moments. The boy with the black hole for a mouth who screams like a cat... scary when I first saw it. Watched it years later and laughed at the absurdity of it.

All the same, The Grudge still gives me some serious nostalgia whenever I see it, so for that I can't be too hard on it. That, and for the fact that once I got older, it became more amusing than scary.