The Grudge (2019)
Directed by Nicolas Pesce
After a young mother murders her family in her own house, a detective attempts to investigate the mysterious case, only to discover that the house is cursed by a vengeful ghost. Now targeted by the demonic spirits, the detective must do anything to protect herself and her family from harm.
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4 films that influenced The Grudge
What critics say influenced The Grudge
Following the success of Gore Verbinski’s The Ring , The Grudge confirmed that there was audience interest (read: money) in adaptations of successful Japanese horror franchises, in this case the Ju-On films originated by Takashi Shimizu.
But for all its genre appropriate flourishes and gory craftsmanship which defies the theatrical release date in which its studio abandoned it, Pesce has little wiggle room to revitalize a familiar story which became a derivative template for countless films in the wake of Shimizu and Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002) remake.
When The Ring , the American version of the Japanese horror film Ringu , came out in 2002, it was like I had been hit by a truck.
It wasn’t long before Hollywood took notice, cranking out a Grudge remake in 2004, The Ring in 2002 and Pulse in 2006.
A quick survey of the familiarly-titled carnage: 2016’s dismal Blair Witch , 2009’s regrettable Friday the 13th , 2018’s limp Halloween , 2010’s pitiful A Nightmare on Elm Street , 2017’s dull Leatherface , 2013’s passable Evil Dead and 2015’s dreadful Poltergeist .
It’s especially dispiriting to see producer Sam Raimi’s name attached to this lunk-headed project – but then again, he was responsible for the equally flimsy/unnecessary remakes of classics like Poltergeist , his own Evil Dead , and yes, you guessed it, 2004’s The Grudge .
Sam Raimi (director of the first three “Spider-Man” movies, “Evil Dead” and “Drag Me to Hell”) is a producer of all of the Hollywood versions of “The Grudge,” so it’s disappointing that he’s behind a horror movie as boring as this one.
Movies like last year’s Escape Room or 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key are effective little genre pictures.
“The Grudge” - the first official movie release of 2020 - joins the ranks of “The Devil Inside,” “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” and “Escape Room” as lower tier January offerings dumped at the start of the year to basically guarantee you’ll forget its existence.
Richard Stanley adapts "The Colour Out of Space," H.P. Lovecraft's favourite of his own stories, as the de-anglicized Color Out of Space , doing an exceedingly faithful job of it.