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Karen is in the
hospital so her sister, Aubrey, has
decided to go to Japan to take care of her. She soon
finds out about the curse, and after Karen mysteriously
dies, she starts to investigate it together with a
Japanese journalist. Meanwhile, three teenaged girls
have snuck into the cursed house to perform a dare,
but naturally things don't go too well for them either.
After six The Grudge movies, and countless rip-offs,
it's no wonder that it feels like you've seen this
movie before. Takashi Shimizu doesn't explore any
new territory in this sequel and instead brings the
subplots from the Japanese originals, that weren't
good enough to get into the remake, to this sequel.
Obviously the result is anything but great, and without
Sarah Michelle Gellar to carry the movie, this grudge
falls flat on its face.
Just like with the other five The Grudge movies, the
movie is built up around three different stories and
locations. While this worked great the first times,
it now feels old and doesn't even manage to tie the
three stories together very well. I thought that I'd
give you a little summary of the three stories so
here goes;
Story number 1: Three teenage girls who are attending
an international school in Tokyo, sneak into the old
abandoned house. Two of the girls dare the third girl
to go into the closet, and we all know what's going
to happen next. This is more or less the exact same
subplot that was used in the Japanese theatrical version
of "Ju-On: The Grudge", and it wasn't very good in that
one either. And this time, they've made it even longer
and more tedious. Watching school girls run around
screaming their brains out isn't what I call a complex
story and I think that Takashi completely messed up
with this one.
Story number 2: Aubrey goes to Japan to visit her sister
Karen who is hospitalized after the accident, only to
encounter the grudge herself. She investigates further
into things together with a Japanese journalist (hmm,
haven't we seen this before?). Ripping off both The
Ring and Shutter, this main story was the worst out of
the bunch and even though Sarah Michelle Gellar shines
in her small cameo appearance, it doesn't save many
minutes of the movie.
Story number 3: A family has just moved into a new flat
and the son soon discovers that there's something
strange about their neighbour. Things go from bad to
worse when the family members start turning against
one another, could this have something to do with the
mysterious neighbour?
There are so many clichés in this movie that I don't
know where to start. We have the ghost appearing in
the TV (The Ring), the ghost appearing in the photo
(Shutter) and don't the main characters always have
a friend who is interested in mythology or folk lore
of some sort that can help them out? The fact that
one third of the movie revolves around teens is an
obvious sign that the writers were running low on ideas
(this is a very common thing to do in rushed horror
movie sequels).
Sure enough, Takashi Shimizu knows how to make the
audience jump by hiding the ghosts in some unexpected
places but unfortunately, the scares didn't make up
for the tediousness of the movie. I swear I was bored
for more than 80% of the time. I guess watching creepy
ghost girls appear in various places can only be
entertaining for so many times. The acting is also
incredibly bad and I think that it would have ended
up being a much better movie if they had just kept
Sarah Michelle Gellar in it since she truly does shine
in her short cameo appearance (as I said before).
Arielle Kebbel is the only one who gives us a somewhat
decent performance out of the rest of the cast and
I think that we will be seeing a lot of her in the future.
In the end however, The Grudge 2 does provide the
scares that the teen audience love so much. Unfortunately,
the concept is old and I think we have all seen this
one too many times before. If my predictions are right,
this PG-13 ghost hysteria wave is about to end. It's
unfortunate how a sequel to such a great remake can
end up being as bland as this was and I'd advice you
to stick to the first five movies rather than checking
this tedious sequel out.
No.
Pretty much the same thing that we got in the remake.
For some reason it doesn't work as well here though.
Tedious but occasionally scary sequel which feels old
and uncreative. I think Takashi played it way too safe
this time and it ended up being a complete mess. The
teen audience might still enjoy this to some extent
though, but I wouldn't recommend checking it out. If
I were you, I'd stick to the first five Grudge movies.
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