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HOME
 THE
GRUDGE
With Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Clea Duvall, Bill Pullman, Ted Raimi Directed by Takashi Shimizu With his Spider-Man success Sam Raimi hasn't forgotten his horror roots. Here he produces Takashi Shimizu's English remake of his own original Japanese film. With that same creeping horror style as Ringu (also remade as The Ring), he milks the most chilling of scenes with an hypnotic pace from the premise of a curse (JU-ON) befalling all who encounter the angered spirit of someone who died in the grips of an intense grudge, its slow, meticulous fury unstoppable. Gellar is a caregiver in Tokyo who has to check in on a homebound patient whose original nurse didn't seem to arrive for work. Slowly she gets sucked into a disturbing black hole of an angered ghost who does not discriminate between its victims, Shimizu's sequences, devices and techniques absolutely effective in scaring the hell out of you. A spirit or ghost that rushes at you with noise is not very terrifying for the viewer - a slow moving horror with unstoppable intent (and a spine tingling low croaking moan) is a total freak out! While modern and stylish, it seems to be the Japanese who are re-educating the world on how to manage and unleash real scares. While the apple pie demeanour of Sarah-Michele Gellar has seen her becoming a 
commercial
horror
favourite
(from
the
Buffy
TV
series
to
I
Know
What
You
Did
Last
Summer),
this
time
round
she's
part
of
something
with
substance
and
true
nail-biting
terror.
Pullman
is
great
in
the
small
role,
which
has
a
huge
narrative
significance.
If
you
love
a
good
scare,
don't
miss
this
one.
5 / B - PB 1 2 3 4 5 6 A - B - C |
never let a review decide for you, but for those who need a rating, see the Flamedrop scale below
| 6
- Volcanic
5 - Blistering 4 - Hot 3 - Smolder 2 - Room Temperature 1 - Fizzled 0 - Extinguished |
A:
Multi-Viewing Potential |
© 2006 Flamedrop Productions
