Remakes are the current climate of Hollywood. Whether we as consumers like it or not. Sure, there are studios out there like A24 who are keeping the creative voice of the little guy alive. Thanks to platforms like Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, & more – the streaming age has extended that voice just a bit further. As I discussed in my Ju-On: The Grudge review, in the early 2000’s Hollywood saw a bloom of Japanese horror westernized. Somehow in that western mindset, something got lost in transition. It’s been close to about 10 to 15 years since I’ve personally seen the American takes on The Ring and The Grudge. The Ring I remember enjoying a great deal until the less than stellar sequels. The Grudge, however, is a different story.
Going back now, as an adult, and understanding the source material a bit better – you start to see how poor the adaptions actually are. Its’ source material was brilliantly crafted, anthological piece of cinema that wove together seemingly unconnected stories to tell one overarching narrative. With that ideology, The Grudge seems like a perfect fit for an anthology trilogy set in the vein of V/H/S or even a series like American Horror Story. However, when it washed up to American shores, that beautiful storytelling got lost in transition. The Americanized version of The Grudge hit screens on October 22, 2004. Even with an impressive box office, and two sequels, the film was not as big of a hit with critics. Not to mention, audiences were a bit less than enthusiastic about the film.
15 years after The Grudge hit American screens and almost 20 years after its Japanese inception, The Grudge scares again but this time from relatively newer writer-director in Nicolas Pesce. This will mark his third film. The Grudge tells the story of a grieving wife, mother and detective (Andrea Riseborough) who uncovers a murder in connection to a previous case of her new partner (Demian Bichir). It’s within her research, that she is exposed to a terrible spiritual plague. While its American predecessors mostly abandoned the anthological roots of its Japanese source material. This version of The Grudge finds its way back to that structure. Telling the story of an American caregiver coming back home to the states, a marriage struggling with their first child, a pair of detectives and more – all feeding into the larger narrative.
Though, it’s in the handling of those arcs, that the blessing and the curse of this movie reside. Pesce actually does a sensational job at the structure of presenting such narratives. However, his flow in between the stories isn’t as smooth. All of the stories are presented through the research narrative of Riseborough’s character. It gives the storytelling a more natural feel. It does also make the movie a bit overstuffed. In the pursuit of its source material’s inventive storytelling, it lacks character development. When it attempts to establish the character developments, it comes across forced and uninspired. Take John Cho, for example. Cho is the real estate agent selling the house of the American caregiver we meet at the beginning of the film. He is a minor player in the film and when we do spend time with him – there is actually a lot of good things to say about him. However, him and his wife (Betty Gilpin) are having pregnancy complications. A plot that never really goes anywhere. Mostly existing to drag audiences through unnecessary emotional plot points.
The Grudge is one of those weird things that doesn’t really know what it wants to be. While it acknowledges its’ source material – its’ never quite sure if it’s a remake or sequel. It just seems to exist in this cinematic purgatory. The frustrating aspect of that is that as a viewer, it aims to be both. Then, once again, there is the unnecessary addition of the emotional arcs. Arcs that aim to pull at the heart string but feel empty of the very thing they are achieving to be. There is even a moment, and I kid you not, where the score from The Newton Brothers aims to inspire hope. I’m not against hope. That is the very core vision of Victims and Villains, but this moment seems to come out of nowhere. It has no build up to or no building into anything larger. Honestly, one of the more baffling moments within its storytelling. Only really serving to be sloppy, and sad.
Overall, The Grudge (2020), is as forgettable as its predecessors. While the film attempts to connect itself to the source material, it seemingly lives in a cinematic purgatory. Serving as neither a sequel nor reboot but rather being a bit of both. Writer-director, Nicolas Pesce, is overly ambiguous to do both and ends up serving up a sloppy and forgettable take on this Japanese classic. The film does revert to its source material’s narrative style through anthological stories being interconnected. Even in how they set it up fuels what little strength the movie has. Yet, its’ in that setup of storytelling that The Grudge really starts to unravel. Making its attempt to create deeper stories for short lived characters and depth – only to end up creating a forgettable movie. The Grudge is a modernized carbon copy of its source material – only difference being its boring, overstuffed and tonally imbalanced.
RORSCHACH RATING
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