Plot Details: This opinion reveals no details about the movie's plot.

Ghosts and haunted houses have fascinated many people for years. They have been featured in many movies over the years. I have seen and enjoyed several of those movies. In some of the movies, there have been different explanations for why the ghosts were around or why a house was haunted. The Grudge (2004) is a movie about a haunted house in Japan.

The Grudge is actually a remake of a successful Japanese horror movie, Ju-on. Takashi Shimizu, the writer and director of the original, also directed the remake. I haven’t seen the original version so I don’t know how the two movies compare. I have read that some things were changed for the remake, but I believe that the basic plot remains the same.

I’m going to be careful not to reveal too much about what happened in The Grudge so I don’t spoil the movie for people that haven’t seen it yet. People that prefer to know nothing about the plots of these types of movies should probably stop reading now.

Yoko was a nurse that was taking care of an American woman, Emma, that was living in Tokyo with her son Matthew and his wife Jennifer. The family moved there because of Matthew’s job. His sister Susan was also living and working in Tokyo. Emma didn’t talk or even move much. Yoko was cleaning when she heard strange noises from a room upstairs. She didn’t show up for work the next day. Karen, a young American that was in Tokyo with her boyfriend Doug, was sent to fill in. Karen discovered something in a room upstairs that disturbed her. She called her boss Alex who found her huddled in a corner, shaken by what had happened. She wanted answers and started investigating. She felt there was something wrong with the house. She discovered a connection to a Japanese family and an American professor, Peter, living in Tokyo.

The Grudge wasn’t a simple movie. It required the audience to really pay attention to keep track of everything that was going. It wasn’t a typical American horror movie that is full of gore. The story wasn’t told in a normal manner either. The first scene was very short and really didn’t make much sense at that point. The next scene was actually the middle of the story, sharing what happened to Yoko and Karen in the house. From that point, the movie moved both forward and backward depicting what happened to the different characters. What happened to Emma’s family was also shared. Peter’s connection to the situation was explained. The movie would progress along going forward for a while and then some events from earlier in the story would be shared before returning to the previous point in the story. The first time the movie jumped backward, I wasn’t sure what was going on. I did figure it out fairly quick. I got use to the movie jumping around and was able to keep track of what was going on. Some viewers may not like that the movie does that and may have more trouble keeping track of everything.

The Grudge was really about the house. The characters were people that came into contact with the house for some reason. The house received more attention than the human characters did. Something horrible had happened in the house which caused it to be haunted. The house did look rather creepy when Karen first walked up to it. She felt ill at ease in the house even before anything happened to her there. The first time she was in the house, Emma saw something that disturbed her. Bad things happened to the people that entered the house and the bad things weren’t confined to the house. Eventually it was explained what had originally happened in the house to set everything in motion.

I thought that The Grudge was a very creepy movie. There were scary things that happened throughout the movie. There were times when I knew something was going to happen because of the creepy sounding music, but I never knew exactly what was going to happen. That did help to build suspense. People that scare easy may not want to watch this movie alone. Very little of the scary things in the movie were done with CGI. There were things that I had thought had to be done with CGI, but when I watched the extras on the DVD I discovered that they weren’t. Different lighting and make up effects were used. A few sequences were filmed normally and then enhanced in some way with special effects. Shadows and subdued lighting were used throughout the movie effectively. Violent things did happen to characters though most of that wasn’t shown on camera. The movie is rated PG-13, so it isn’t a movie for children.

The Grudge had a rather large cast though most of them didn’t have much to do. None of the characters were developed that much. Many were just shown in a few scenes, like when they first encountered the house, and ultimately what happened to them. Emma was probably shown a little more than the rest of her family. There wasn’t much of an explanation for what was wrong with her. Karen probably had the largest part and she was still mostly flat. Basically all that was shown about her was that she was a nurse living in Tokyo with her boyfriend. Sarah Michelle Gellar was fine in the part. There really wasn’t anything special about the character. Karen did want to figure out what was going on with the house, but I didn’t think she was really that strong of a character. She was very different from the character she played in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All of the acting was fine. None of the actors had that much to do since most of the parts were smaller.

CAST

Jason Behr - Doug
Rosa Blasi - Maria Kirk
Clea DuVall - Jennifer Williams
Sarah Michelle Gellar - Karen Davis
Yoko Maki - Yoko
William Mapother - Matthew Williams
Bill Pullman Peter Kirk
Ted Raimi - Alex
KaDee Strickland - Susan Williams
Grace Zabriskie - Emma Williams

DVD INFORMATION

There is an extended version of The Grudge on DVD. I don’t think that is the one that I rented. The movie was in the widescreen format. There was a commentary that featured Sarah Michelle Gellar and a few other people involved in making the movie. I didn’t have a chance to listen to that. There were a few documentaries about how the movie was made that included interviews with the cast and crew. I did think those were interesting.

The Grudge was an interesting, entertaining movie that I did enjoy. It was creepy with some scares and turned out to be a decent thriller. I have seen scarier movies. It is worth seeing at least once if you like this type of movie.

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Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age