It helps seeing both the original, JU ON, and THE GRUDGE back to back to see why remakes just don't work most of the time and what one should never do in a horror film if the first version was already perfect. Rarely have they ever done so: except for Hitchcock's own re-telling of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH in 1956, most of the times they have failed miserably. This one retells the same story, eliminating two major plot arcs from the first (the three missing students who were at the house with the haunted detective's daughter, and Mariko's storyline who served to expand on the curse, here served by Bill Pullman's storyline), and adding a boyfriend to Sarah Michelle Gellar's Karen, as well as creating yet another brief role in the beginning -- the caretaker of the old lady, unseen in the first.
THE GRUDGE is no exception to the rule of the unnecessary remake: While it does have one or two minor moments of silent dread as when Clea duVall's character meets her fate in the haunted house, the use of black tendrils and shock moments don't quite help bring the real horror, and Sarah Michelle Gellar conveys absolutely nothing in her scene when she is found crouched in a corner by the dead old lady (Grace Zabriskie), which negates the intense blankness that one could see in Megumi Okina's harrowed face in the original. I have a sneaking suspicion that this was a joint effort to capitalize on the success of JU ON and bring it (quite badly) upon the more complacent and less demanding American public. And while some of the elements of the Sakei family tragedy answers some questions, the essence of horror is to leave these questions partly answered, or unanswered. This always makes the insanity of what happens even more haunting, unsettling.
THE GRUDGE is no exception to the rule of the unnecessary remake: While it does have one or two minor moments of silent dread as when Clea duVall's character meets her fate in the haunted house, the use of black tendrils and shock moments don't quite help bring the real horror, and Sarah Michelle Gellar conveys absolutely nothing in her scene when she is found crouched in a corner by the dead old lady (Grace Zabriskie), which negates the intense blankness that one could see in Megumi Okina's harrowed face in the original. I have a sneaking suspicion that this was a joint effort to capitalize on the success of JU ON and bring it (quite badly) upon the more complacent and less demanding American public. And while some of the elements of the Sakei family tragedy answers some questions, the essence of horror is to leave these questions partly answered, or unanswered. This always makes the insanity of what happens even more haunting, unsettling.