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Very disappointing...

It is a performances centric movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

More than just a bit confusing, to say the least. Jumping between couples and time also adds to the confusion. The film plays like a bunch of random ideas thrown into a blender and mixed together. The child character is oh-so-cliched, as are the 'stalking' images on the victim's photographs. During the climax the heroin is so passive, its as if she simply allows everything to happen without any resistance whatsoever. Yawn.

Enveloped with a chilling sense of dread, sustaining its ominous vibe throughout its runtime, and confusing the viewers with its puzzling storyline & non-linear arrangement, the Hollywood remake of Ju-On: The Grudge is laden with jump scares but the story it packs lacks a proper structure and rarely makes any sense.Set in Tokyo, the story of The Grudge follows an American exchange student who agrees to cover for a nurse who didn't show up for work but encounters a vengeful spirit at the assigned house. A series of segments focuses on numerous other people who entered the same house but turned up dead in the following days.Directed by Takashi Shimizu, who also helmed the original, The Grudge borrows nearly everything from its source material, including its shortcomings, and although there are some jumpy frights to be found here, sitting through it becomes an ordeal after a while, for its plot takes numerous turns yet has no definite idea about where it's headed.What's commendable is its sinister aura which keeps its atmosphere tense & unsettling at all times but the scary moments are more or less predictable. Editing is an absolute mess, Camera is finely utilised, and music does its required job. Coming to the performances, majority of people in it are forgettable but Sarah Michelle Gellar still does well with what she's given.On an overall scale, The Grudge follows the same route that the original Japanese horror did but it does manage to be slightly less convoluted. I'm not sure if that's because I'd already seen Ju-On: The Grudge and knew what to expect. Nevertheless, it does make good use of available resources, is more creepy than scary, and if you enjoyed the original then The Grudge should be right up your alley.

The Grudge (2004): Dir: Takashi Shimizu / Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Bill Pullman, Clea Duvall, KaDee Strickland: Misleading title in a graphic horror film where many nameless victims are mutilated to the delight of an audience that desires to see more of this tripe. It is shocking to hear an audience cheer during such crap. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a caregiver who discovers that the mansion she is visiting is haunted. There is an elderly lady who sleeps and then shrieks at ghosts, and Gellar is not long identifying her problem. Starts out well with a suicide but becomes routine after the umpteenth person is killed. The ending is a complete cheat but what really stands out is the film's inability to make any sense. Why not create an interesting thriller about trauma? Instead director Takashi Shimizu Americanizes his Japanese film for no other reason than to allow Hollywood to rape his craft. Gellar holds her own as the caregiver overwhelmed by haunting images and decides to investigate the history behind it all. Other roles are not so lucky and fall into that camera stalk and kill cliché. Jason Behr, Bill Pullman and Clea Du Vall are completely wasted in roles that are subdued by visuals. The special effects are done with appeal but unfortunately the screenplay was not given the same regard. The only grudge held should come from Japan. Score: 2 ½ / 10

Karen, a young social carer, is sent to a home for her first assignment to look after a woman who suffers from dementia when Yoko, the woman's regular carer, fails to show up. Not long after she arrives at the house, Karen hears noises coming from inside a bedroom closet that's been taped up, so she opens it and finds a young boy and his cat. After contacting her boss, Alex, for help, she waits at the house, but it's during this time that an unspeakable horror manifests causing the death of the woman and sending Karen to go into a state of shock. After being released from hospital, Karen learns of the murders of Kayako Saeki and her son Toshio, and, along with Detective Nakagawa, she starts to realise that the vengeful spirits of the Saeki family somehow still reside inside the home and anyone who ventures into it may well become the next victim.The Grudge, as we all know, is an American remake of the Japanese hit Ju-on, and is, in my opinion, just as good. This version sticks pretty close to the original and a lot of the scenes are the same, but a few have been added for this version that weren't in the original i.e. you see more of what happens to Kayako & Toshio, and watch out for the exceedingly creepy Yoko.The story is told in the same non-linear style, but for some reason didn't seem as confusing. Also, being a Hollywood film, you'd expect a CGI-fest for the Kayako scenes, but again, like the original, these were kept to a minimum with actress Takako Fuji doing all her own creepy contortions & movements. This may be because it was the same director who done Ju-on, who knows, but it's good that CGI never over-shadowed the story.I enjoyed the original Japanese version, but to be honest I personally thought that this remake was actually the scarier of the two. There will be die-hard Japanese horror fans that will stupidly ridicule this version just because it's an American remake, but if you've not seen it just ignore the trolls and judge it for yourself.