LogFAQs > #946024587

DAY 18.1: The Grudge (2004)
On Peacock

You know, I remember being really impressed and scared of this movie sixteen years ago. Now? Uh... I dunno. This version seems lacking a bit.

The Grudge is about a substitute nurse who appears in a haunted house with creepy meowing and croaking.

So okay, I haven't seen the original Ju-On (which I think is happening this weekend), but I wanted to use this as a refresher on the one version I did see so I could compare them. But I want to get the positives out of the way.

This movie does the creepy stuff really, really well. There are some iconic things that happen here that you can't forget, while there's other things that are... well, entirely forgettable and not great. But when it hits, it hits hard.

Well, onto the negative. The plot is... kind of not great to me? I think it's presented as kind of a mess. Not that I don't like it jumping around like it did, because I think that part was fine, but my issue is with certain parts. Like why the fuck bring the sister in this at all? She's entirely irrelevant to everything and just serves as a diversion, even if her portion is actually pretty good. But I just felt like "Why am I watching her?" I also feel that the whole backstory of the events and haunting is also not exactly compelling. I won't get too much into it here, but I just found myself underwhelmed by it. Made even worse that it's just a big giant story dump that's just not really telegraphed in the story at all? Like we don't get any hints to any of this at all. Just straight plot dump. I don't like that.

All of that said, it's still not a bad movie. I think the scares are creative enough to really sell it, even if they don't all land.

I feel like when I see Ju-On I'll recommend people just watch that instead though, as I understand it's supposed to be superior to the US version in most every way.

Rating: 6.5/10

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