Although not as complicated as THE RING, THE GRUDGE is an extremely creepy ghost story in which the ghosts do much more than just haunt you. Told in a nonlinear fashion, it's the story of a house in Japan that has a curse upon it. When a social services volunteer named Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is sent to substitute for the care of a near catatonic older woman (Grace Zabriskie) she encounters a young boy locked in a closet with his black cat. Upset, she calls back to her office and tells her boss about this. He tells her that he'll stop by later. She goes to check on the woman she's seemingly talking to herself-but what she's talking to soon shows its terrifying self. The next thing she knows is that she wakes up in the hospital, her boyfriend (Jason Behr of ROSWELL) sitting beside her.Everyone who goes into the house is killed by the ghosts that haunt it, all except Karen, for some reason.The majority of the effects are low-key but there are a few jolting gross-outs, particularly a scene where a dead girl is shuffling around who is missing her bottom jaw.The biggest problem I had with the film is that the reason for the curse doesn't seem good enough-it's too simple and doesn't explain enough why the ghosts are so violent towards the people they encounter. It's also about twenty-minutes too long. The things I liked were the suspense, a decent performance by Gellar (who sucked in SCOOBY 2) and that it made me jump in my seat a few times.
Although not as complicated as THE RING, THE GRUDGE is an extremely creepy ghost story in which the ghosts do much more than just haunt you. Told in a nonlinear fashion, it's the story of a house in Japan that has a curse upon it. When a social services volunteer named Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is sent to substitute for the care of a near catatonic older woman (Grace Zabriskie) she encounters a young boy locked in a closet with his black cat. Upset, she calls back to her office and tells her boss about this. He tells her that he'll stop by later. She goes to check on the woman she's seemingly talking to herself-but what she's talking to soon shows its terrifying self. The next thing she knows is that she wakes up in the hospital, her boyfriend (Jason Behr of ROSWELL) sitting beside her.Everyone who goes into the house is killed by the ghosts that haunt it, all except Karen, for some reason.The majority of the effects are low-key but there are a few jolting gross-outs, particularly a scene where a dead girl is shuffling around who is missing her bottom jaw.The biggest problem I had with the film is that the reason for the curse doesn't seem good enough-it's too simple and doesn't explain enough why the ghosts are so violent towards the people they encounter. It's also about twenty-minutes too long. The things I liked were the suspense, a decent performance by Gellar (who sucked in SCOOBY 2) and that it made me jump in my seat a few times.
