Film Review: "The Grudge"
Film: The Grudge (2004)
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Studio: Columbia Pictures
LB Rating: 2/5 (old rating: 3/10)
The Grudge (2004) is the remade version (for American viewers) of the Japanese film Ju-On: the Grudge (2002). The Grudge is basically a collection of interwoven short stories connected by the haunting of a vengeful ghost. The film does not adhere to usual film structures. There are several characters but it is difficult to point out who the main character really is (yeah I would say Karen, but only on the basis of long screen time). The short stories are told in a non-linear manner, that is, the stories are not chronologically arranged. The Grudge also boasts of introducing one of the most iconic horror characters ever: Kayako.
Personally, I do not find The Grudge to be an effective film in most aspects. It isn't particularly scary save for one or two jump scare scenes. Nor is it fundamentally scary, like effective horror films that stay with you for a while. The unconventionality of the film does not even contribute positively to the film, which says a lot because unconventional films usually receive a lot of praise for standing out.
Anyway, let's get into detail on why I think this film is such a flop:
Non-linear structure - The Grudge suffered heavily from the poor execution of its unconventional story structure. I think that the charm of non-linear story structure is how such structure is able to hint about the climax through clever placement of details within each scene. This is due to the confusing nature of non-linear stories, and their tendency to make sense only in the end. Basically, non-linear stories have the burden of answering the questions they pose, and the answers are placed cleverly in the details of the seemingly unrelated scenes. The Grudge neither placed the answers cleverly, nor placed the answers at all in some scenes.
(Warning - some spoilers ahead) I think that the main question that the Grudge introduced is, "What the hell is that ghost woman in the beginning?" Even that is not set up well because of another introductory scene that pretends to carry the main question of the film (the guy who jumped off the building at the very beginning). Anyway, the ghost woman is an onryo or a vengeful spirit, a ghost from Japanese culture. The film carries the burden of telling the audience what an onryo is, to answer the main question. Now, I say that the detail placement is bad because the details are missing from most acts. That said, I could probably delete some acts and it would probably not affect the film at all. A lot of the scenes are irrelevant.
Climax - To add insult to injury, since each story fails to act as a puzzle to complete the picture, the tensions created in each scene did not set up for the ultimate tension that is the climax. Therefore, the climax was highly underwhelming. Not to mention how stupid it is, since the answers I'm supposedly looking for in the climax are revealed in a shove-it-in-your-mouth way. What is an onryo? Why is the woman and her kid an onryo? How did they become ghosts? Here's the climax where we suddenly compel the semi-protagonist to go to the haunted house at midnight, then have her walk up some stairs to get teleported into a flashback so she can see the root of it all. Also, within the flashback is another flashback because the earlier minutes of the film did nothing to expose the story, so might as well overload the climax scene. What a headache.
Iconic characters - One particularly annoying fact is that the characters have the potential to be the stuff of nightmares. Kayako and Toshio are unique characters and they are scary as they are. However, since the film is so ineffective, Kayako and Toshio are mostly met with "Okay..." rather than terror. It's a big waste.
Overall, The Grudge is like an almost lover. You wonder about could-have-beens and what-ifs but really, you should just put him/her in the past. The potentials are only masking the fundamentally broken things behind the person. So it's better to move on and never think of the person again. Anyway, maybe I should watch the original Japanese version before I completely shit on Shimizu as a director. But for now, The Grudge gets a three because if anything, the film at least had good ideas.
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Studio: Columbia Pictures
LB Rating: 2/5 (old rating: 3/10)
The Grudge (2004) is the remade version (for American viewers) of the Japanese film Ju-On: the Grudge (2002). The Grudge is basically a collection of interwoven short stories connected by the haunting of a vengeful ghost. The film does not adhere to usual film structures. There are several characters but it is difficult to point out who the main character really is (yeah I would say Karen, but only on the basis of long screen time). The short stories are told in a non-linear manner, that is, the stories are not chronologically arranged. The Grudge also boasts of introducing one of the most iconic horror characters ever: Kayako.
Personally, I do not find The Grudge to be an effective film in most aspects. It isn't particularly scary save for one or two jump scare scenes. Nor is it fundamentally scary, like effective horror films that stay with you for a while. The unconventionality of the film does not even contribute positively to the film, which says a lot because unconventional films usually receive a lot of praise for standing out.
Anyway, let's get into detail on why I think this film is such a flop:
Non-linear structure - The Grudge suffered heavily from the poor execution of its unconventional story structure. I think that the charm of non-linear story structure is how such structure is able to hint about the climax through clever placement of details within each scene. This is due to the confusing nature of non-linear stories, and their tendency to make sense only in the end. Basically, non-linear stories have the burden of answering the questions they pose, and the answers are placed cleverly in the details of the seemingly unrelated scenes. The Grudge neither placed the answers cleverly, nor placed the answers at all in some scenes.
(Warning - some spoilers ahead) I think that the main question that the Grudge introduced is, "What the hell is that ghost woman in the beginning?" Even that is not set up well because of another introductory scene that pretends to carry the main question of the film (the guy who jumped off the building at the very beginning). Anyway, the ghost woman is an onryo or a vengeful spirit, a ghost from Japanese culture. The film carries the burden of telling the audience what an onryo is, to answer the main question. Now, I say that the detail placement is bad because the details are missing from most acts. That said, I could probably delete some acts and it would probably not affect the film at all. A lot of the scenes are irrelevant.
Climax - To add insult to injury, since each story fails to act as a puzzle to complete the picture, the tensions created in each scene did not set up for the ultimate tension that is the climax. Therefore, the climax was highly underwhelming. Not to mention how stupid it is, since the answers I'm supposedly looking for in the climax are revealed in a shove-it-in-your-mouth way. What is an onryo? Why is the woman and her kid an onryo? How did they become ghosts? Here's the climax where we suddenly compel the semi-protagonist to go to the haunted house at midnight, then have her walk up some stairs to get teleported into a flashback so she can see the root of it all. Also, within the flashback is another flashback because the earlier minutes of the film did nothing to expose the story, so might as well overload the climax scene. What a headache.
Iconic characters - One particularly annoying fact is that the characters have the potential to be the stuff of nightmares. Kayako and Toshio are unique characters and they are scary as they are. However, since the film is so ineffective, Kayako and Toshio are mostly met with "Okay..." rather than terror. It's a big waste.
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| Kayako shattered the illusion of safety under blankets. (Image source: Google) |
Overall, The Grudge is like an almost lover. You wonder about could-have-beens and what-ifs but really, you should just put him/her in the past. The potentials are only masking the fundamentally broken things behind the person. So it's better to move on and never think of the person again. Anyway, maybe I should watch the original Japanese version before I completely shit on Shimizu as a director. But for now, The Grudge gets a three because if anything, the film at least had good ideas.
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