So the first January movie of 2020 is your typical toss-it-into-theaters-and-run low expectation horror movie The Grudge. This is (surprisingly) a sequel to the 2014 Sarah Michelle Gellar remake of the Japanese film Ju-On. And everyone is writing it off… it’s at 19% positive removes on Rotten Tomatoes and an even more dire 20% positive viewer score (meaning people who spent their own cash and who are not professional reviewers hated it). And why wouldn’t they? It’s a January dumping ground horror movie with very little advertising and some pretty mediocre trailers if they even played in the theater.
But, you know what, I loved this movie. I’m am literally (LITERALLY!!!) the only person on the planet to say that… or, based on some of the reviews, perhaps the only person who is willing to admit it. Since some of the reviews I’ve watched on YouTube have people rolling their eyes and saying, “Well, it’s January” and then going on to layout the things the movie does well. “But it’s just not scary,” they say after saying it’s well acted, it looks good, it has a very atmosphere, creepy mood, and that they cared about the characters and hoped they wouldn’t die. Sounds like a great movie!
The movie opens in 2004 with an American caretaker of the haunted Japanese house from the first flick deciding she’s had enough. She flies home to the US, not realizing she’s bringing the spooks home with her. They proceed to take up residence in her family home and the curse starts up all over again.
The movie has a very interesting angle. It’s main focus is on a police detective investigating the many deaths associated with the house. That’s unique itself – usually these movies end when the cops show up. She uncovers a long series of grisly murders that happen in this rapidly haunted house. The film flashes back to events from 2004, 2005, and 2006 and the murders and deaths in each time period. This flashback structure is interesting and works pretty well… though it’s not always straight-forward as to what time you are in during the film. A minor problem (oddly shared with the new Little Women remake… that’d be an interesting double feature).
What I like so much about this movie is that it knows how to generate an atmosphere of dread. The movie just crawls with suspense… it creates this foreboding mood which very few horror movies can to (if they bother to try at all). But more than that, it introduces characters and situations we actually care about. These aren’t annoying teenagers bickering with each so we hope they die… these are adults with real problems who we don’t want bad things to happen to. For example, a pregnant couple who just find out their baby will probably be born with a debilitating disease or an old married couple who are seeking help with an assisted suicide. The cop herself has a child and has recently lost her husband to cancer.
The movie not only knows how to create a creepy mood, it’s also imbued with deep sadness. This may not seem like a fun time at the movies and that’s because it’s not. It’s not your average throw-popcorn-at-the-screen kind of horror film. Nobody told this film maker that he was making a cheap, nobody-asked-for-it remake/sequel. He went and ahead and used his formidable indie film sensibilities to actually make a mature horror film.
The only problem then with this movie is that it’s forced to be a Grudge movie. This means that whatever foreboding atmosphere it has is already spoiled by the fact we know what’s going on. But the movie does a great job of avoiding a lot of the cliches of the series. Unfortunately, I was left with my own sense of foreboding that the movie would fall apart in the end and just be another generic horror film due to studio interference. It does a little bit – there’s an increasing use of (actually effective) jump scares late in the film and plenty of that croaking sound the ghosts make. And the movie doesn’t QUITE stick the ending, but at least it doesn’t completely fall apart into those cliches.
I honestly think this movie wasn’t originally filmed as a Grudge sequel or remake. The ghosts/haunting doesn’t really follow the “rules” of the previous movies and the ghosts don’t look like the typical Japanese spooks. Sometimes there’s that typical long hair ghost shot but it’s not quite the same. There’s an intro scene set outside the house from the original film and one person mentions the Tokyo haunting but those could have been inserts. I suppose it doesn’t matter… but it might go a long way to explain why this movie feels like it’s own thing.
I just hope I’m right. It’s possibly I somehow Twilight Zone’d myself into a completely different movie than what other people are seeing. It wouldn’t be the first time. But, that said, I highly recommend this film to those who like a good suspenseful, eerie horror film. If you don’t need a popcorn-a-minute spill-a-thon and actually want a movie that gives you the creeps and makes you like the character and want them to NOT die, this is a pretty great movie. Just know the critics and viewer scores on Rotten Tomatoes both say I’m wrong.
Score: 88