Before Hollywood started remaking and Americanizing Japanese horror films like Ford use to mass produce the Model T, films like The Grudge laid the ground work for the onslaught. However, unlike all the rest of those "J-horror" remakes, The Grudge is actually a good movie. After the original caretaker is reported missing Karen, an American student, is sent to look after an older woman in a house where strange things are occurring. She has an encounter with something she cannot explain. Soon after she attempts to discover what it was she saw and what happened to the previous owners of the house.
What made the film such an effective horror picture was the fact that the scares and frights were constant throughout. A person would barely be recovered from the last terrifying situation when another would pop up out of nowhere and cause them to jump in their seat (again). The scares in the film were also effective because they were accomplished via quick cuts with the camera or editing or by creepy CGI work. The sound design also deserves special mention here due to the fact that the "death rattle" that comes from Yoko (the violent ghost haunting the house Sarah Michelle Gellar has the misfortune of being in) will haunt a viewer for days on end. Add to that Yoko's eerie staccato movements and she becomes one of those keystone horror icons that is so often immitated, but never duplicated. If the filmmakers had depended on excessive blood and gore to achieve a scare, it would have diminished the frightening parts and the movie as a whole. The Grudge also benefited from have a non – linear story presentation. By cutting forward and back in time, director Takasi Shimizu was able to show why the house was the way it was without alienating the audience with extraneous exposition. This was a great haunted house film with more scares than Jason, Freddy, or any other manic killer could muster.
Grade: B
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