| Overall Grade: |
C |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
C+ |
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| Direction: |
C- |
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| Visuals: |
B- |
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Too Confused To Be Scared
by KISSman (movies profile)
Oct 7, 2005
61
of
85 people found this review helpful
The Grudge is a movie that has a wealth of potential, but just does add up in the end. The plot in its simplest form is an interesting one. It is made apparent to us that something extremely sorrowful has occurred inside the house where the film's plot is based. And because of this occurrence, anyone who enters the house is will be condemned to death. Ouch.
The problem is that the execution of the movie is just too disjointed. It's sort of hard to follow and beyond the basic plot, the whole thing makes little sense. It's ok for a story to be completely farfetched, but I do expect that it still should make some sense within the story they are trying to tell us. It's none more apparent when they finally reveal to Sarah Michelle Gellar's character what really happened within the walls of this creep-infested house. But why it reveals itself to her the way it does leaves you with just as many questions as answers. Just when you think that she is somehow 'special' because she is able to 'see' the origin of what caused this evil, it
is also made clear that she really isn't exempt from the house wanting her as dead as anyone else it has it's eye on.
The entire time, I just got the sense this was a rip-off of The Ring. Then again, I don't know the history of the original Japanese versions to know for sure which was first. But judging what I have seen of the American versions, this movie seemed to use some of the exact same tactics to disturb the audience. Unfortunately, in this case, there was very little substance or creativity to back them up. I mean, there was the wavy, jittery TV monitor screens, a semi-dead girl with hair in her face mysteriously killing people, and the standard creepy little kid.
The ending, as you would suspect, was supposed to be unexpected. But since the movie was never very clear to begin with, it had minimal lasting impact. The director walked a fine line in trying to randomly jump around the timeline as a stylistic approach, but unlike in a movie like 21 Grams where such a tactic was what made a good movie even more interesting, this just make it all the more hard to follow because the director fails to really establish any of the characters.
The positives? I did like that even though they decided to American-ize the film, they left the story in Japan. And much like The Ring, they used the TV surveillance cam footage brilliantly here to really sell the utter creepiness of the female ghost woman. That footage the cop watches is very unsettling. Overall, I think you could still find The Grudge entertaining -- and scary -- despite it's many flaws. I suppose that's a positive.
To me, I cannot help but to keep comparing this film to The Ring seeing how their history and style are fairly similar. Maybe the biggest problem with this film overall was the 'laugh factor'. In the theatre I saw this in, the audience found themselves laughing after many of the scary scenes except for maybe the final stretch. They found the sound effect of the ghost people equally creepy and ridiculous and they seemed unconvinced that even though some of the scenes ended in a quick spook, they found the specters themselves not very spooky. It's hard to feel completely uneasy when the audience keeps finding themselves in stitches.
Anyhow, if you are looking for a movie to get you in the mood for Halloween, you could still get away with choosing The Grudge to help fill that need. But post-October 31, there is little reason to make any great effort to see this less-than-stellar Ring-style knockoff. |
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