The Grudge has had an interesting trajectory as a horror franchise over the last two decades. The series, which started out as low budget V-Cinema or Japanese direct to video fare with Ju-On: The Curse, later transitioned to the big screen with Ju-On: The Grudge and later was localized in the US in the J-Horror boom. In my opinion The Curse films have a creepiness that began to wane the slicker the iterations became. With this latest American reboot/sequel directed by Nicolas Pesce (The Eyes of My Mother) it brings us to the 13th film in the Ju-On canon to date, that now spans not only films, but web series, novels, and video games.
Like the films before it, The Grudge features a fractured narrative that picks up after the events of the previous films, focusing this time on three interweaving stories to help disorient the audience. We get the bulk of the exposition through the eyes of rookie Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) who has recently moved to the fictional sleepy town of Cross River in rural Pennsylvania with her son after the death of her husband. We discover through her investigation that the curse was brought to America by Fiona Landers, a live-in nurse who had picked it up after a run in with the vengeful ghost antagonist of the series Kayako Saeki while in Japan. Fans will spot her appearance in a pulsating trash bag outside of the Japanese residence from the series.
This is a direct callback to the origin of the curse or grudge that looms over the series. One-night Kayako’s husband Takeo, in a fit of jealousy breaks her neck and stuffs her, still alive, into a trash bag. Before finally stabbing the woman to death. Her end was so painful, that it transformed her into a Onryō — a Japanese vengeance spirit inhabiting the place she died, killing all who step foot in the house. The titular curse is then brought to Fiona’s home in the US, where Detective Muldoon follows the trail of deaths through the Landers’ family and those that came into contact with the home. Numerology is also an interesting element here with the address of the Lander’s home being 44 Reyburn. Four is considered a particularly unlucky number in Asia because it is nearly homophonous to the Chinese word for “death”, so 44 is the basically the “double death”.
Filled with some effective jump scares and infused with a never-ending supply of dread, the biggest flaw in The Grudge is that this story feels so disconnected from its source. This is probably because it’s the thirteenth iteration in a franchise that is so far removed at this point from the source it’s almost abstract. The fact that it also doesn’t really dig into why this curse is a thing, or the rules it follows or how it works really puts the audience who aren’t up on the film’s mythology at a severe disadvantage. Since the film is being booked as a stand-alone reboot I can understand why some would be a bit thrown off by this approach. The acting however is the rare highlight with Andrea Riseborough driving this damaged narrative forward with an empathic performance.
Being a fan of the original films, I probably got more out of it than most, but I see the obvious shortcomings from it not having any tangible connection for newcomers to the previous films. I also found it odd the film failed to dig into that stark style J-horror is known for, instead going with a more conventional, much warmer color palette, rather than the blues and grays that tend to dominate these films. Its visual break from the world just managed to further distance it from the previous films making it an odd standalone piece that just doesn’t work in the end. The Grudge isn’t great but it’s not terrible either, the makings of a good film is there just below the surface, only it feels incomplete clocking in barely at 90 minutes, like its missing probably another storyline or the connective tissues to the rest of the cannon.