109. The Grudge; movie review

THE GRUDGE
Cert 15
94 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong gore, violence, threat

Lin Shaye has appeared in horror movies for 40 years and, at the age of 77, she ain't stopping yet.
When Shaye was cast as 'nurse with a telegram' in 1982's Jekyll and Hyde... Together Again, she began one of the longest associations with the genre in history.
Shaye's contorted face has become synonymous with some of the biggest box office hits of the past decade.
And here she is at it again, trying to scare the bejesus out of audiences of The Grudge.
Unfortunately, Shaye doesn't tend to discriminate over the quality of the pictures in which she appears and it would be safe to say that The Grudge ain't no Insidious.
Presumably, its makers, including Sam Raimi, would point to a $50m box office return on a $10m budget as a sign of success.
I can only assume its audiences have been made up of people who were either not born when The Grudge's original was made, have never seen a haunted house picture before or left very disappointed.
Nicolas Pesce's movie helped me learn a new word - sidequel - because it takes place during and after the 2004 American remake of the Japanese film Ju-On.
It stars Andrea Riseborough as a newly widowed police officer whose first assignment in her new department, is the investigation of a woman who is found dead in her car.
From there, inquiries lead to a house which has a past of murder and mayhem.
The aforementioned Shaye is the current resident but anyone who passes the threshold is faced with visions of those who have previously died horrible deaths on site.
Yep, they follow them out of the house and even inspire them to do ghastly stuff, unwittingly.
Let's be blunt. The Grudge is a pile of tosh. Indeed, it would be bad enough even if it did its job and made its audience jump.
Only once did it succeed in prompting me to do that. Otherwise, it relied too heavily on the threatening music, ghosts submerged in the water and emerging suddenly and lots of other horror cliches.
Could it be in the worst ten movies of the year? Very possible.

Reasons to watch: If you need a haunted house fix
Reasons to avoid: Cliche-riddled and not scary

Laughs: None
Jumps: One
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 3.5/10

Did you know? Takashi Shimizu started his conception of the ghost and its story in a 1998 movie called Gakko No Kaidan which featured two short stories titled Katasumi and 4444444444s.

The final word. Nicolas Pesce: "I thought in this world now where everything is being remade but fans are still hyper-sensitive to canon and the pre-established mythology, rather than remaking the old movies, why don’t we make a new instalment into that canon of mythology." The Beat

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