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I went to the exclusive New Year’s Eve advanced première of The Grudge at Cinestars (which anyone who passed by and bought a ticket could attend) expecting at best something average, which was fulfilled. If there’s something that deserves praise in the new The Grudge is the effort to make an adult horror film without pleasing teenage audiences. Visually, it’s ugly rather than cool, and the main character, Andrea Risebororough, can’t be said to be one the prettiest actresses at first sight. But that this effort resulted in a particularly recommendable film, that can’t be said. Like in the previous The Grudge and Ju-on: The Grudge, we have a story of murder related to some curse told in a non-chronological way, and the whole thing is pointless. A lot of time is spent on characters whose fates are clear (spoiler: they die), leaving little for the female protagonist in the last chronological line. What’s funny is that the creators want the viewer to fear for the fate of the main character’s son, even if they don’t have the chance to get to like him in any way. The care the creators put in portraying the relationship is clear from the fact that the son appears at the beginning of the film and doesn’t show up again until almost an hour later. The new The Grudge looks like falling apart, as if it had been violently cut – which is very possible, given that its original première was pushed back a year. As a result, it lacks drive, pace and escalation, and the continuity of each of the scenes is very problematic. 5/10 (2020.01.02)

The Grudge is an American co-production made by Sam Raimi and Takeshi Shimizu, the creator of the original Japanese horror franchise Ju-On: The Grudge and this movie is an American remake. This remake is just about different enough, albeit only slightly, and I don’t think that is enough. In my view all this movie does is try to cash in on a familiar brand but lacks originality. (2020.04.01)