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A Great Halloween Flick
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Jul 3, 2007
122
of
174 people found this review helpful
It doesn't measure up to my expectations. Sarah Michelle Gellar is pretty decent in her first big role but the direction's horrible. Director Takashi Shimizu just throws the monsters in our faces from the start. There's no time to build any real fear, and no real care for the characters. Perhaps the most annoying thing isn't related directly to the movie, it's the audience. The moronic banter and screams of the prepubescent crowd takes away any, if there are any, chances of a decent scare. I didn't get scared once.
If there aren't so many Japanese people running around in the movie, you wouldn't know it was essentially an Asian horror film. The director seems to adapt the original, Ju-On, for the gore-hungry American audience. Instead of the truly terrifying psychological horror Asian films deliver, it more resembles Freddy vs. Jason (which I like by the way). Like Freddy vs. Jason, Grudge is also unintentionally funny sometimes (at least it was to me). In a Ring moment, Ryo Ishibashi's character is watching a tape with a woman getting closer and closer to the screen. The mix of cheesy high-pitched music and the hilarious expression on Ishibashi's face made me burst out laughing. Of course, the bulk the audiences was mindlessly screaming away like always. . . .
There were a few sweet shots. (Warning: Spoiler! Skip this paragraph if you're going to see the movie) My favorite had to have been when a woman runs into a staircase. (Cue the music) All of a sudden the power from the levels above her begin to sound crackling and thumping. As the lights go out floor to descending floor, the woman notices something below her. Climbing slowly and rather sloppily up the levels was a very pale woman garbed in a white dress. That was so awesome. She had no where to run except back through the door she had entered to escape (from what, well, that's not very clear). There was also a shot where a presumably early victim had returned in rags. A man encountered her and she was unresponsive. When he notices the trail of blood she left behind, she turns and bang! Her entire lower jaw was missing! That was great, her tongue was hanging out a foot from her lip. (insert obscene, perverse joke here about oral sex. . . .)
The great film I had anticipated, it was not. Going in expecting to see a great horror film would be a mistake. But it was good, silly Halloween fun. If you think you can tolerate the audience, then you'll enjoy this movie. |
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