The Grudge (2020)
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The Grudge (Released on home media as The Grudge: The Untold Chapter) is a 2020 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Nicolas Pesce, and produced by Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Taka Ichise.
Summary
After a young mother murders her own family in their house, a single mother and young detective (Andrea Riseborough) tries to investigate and solve the case. Later, she discovers the house is cursed by a vengeful ghost that dooms those who enter it with a violent death. Now, she runs to save herself and her son from demonic spirits from the cursed house in her neighborhood.
Why It Sucks
- The film mostly relies on cheap jump scares and lacks the suspense and nightmare-fuel that the other Grudge films had.
- The most popular, famous, and iconic character from The Grudge, Kayako (the white stringy-haired ghost woman), literally gets less than a minute of screen time yet she’s the main reason on how this film kicked off. Sound kinda familiar?
- This can also be considered false advertising since most of the promotional stills and posters show Kayako's long stringy black hair as if she would’ve been the main antagonist again.
- Also, the other two Grudge antagonists (Toshio and Takeo) are nowhere to be found in this movie.
- The film tries way too hard to be dramatic and bring something new and fresh to The Grudge films but fails miserably in the process.
- The side plots feel undone and a wasted opportunity, such as the side plot of Peter Spencer and his wife, Nina, about to become parents to a disabled child.
- The movie can get really boring and predictable most of the time.
- Some bits in the movie are copied from its 2004 predecessor, like how Muldoon and Goodman try to burn the house down to try and end the curse.
- It’s been in Development Hell since the early 2010s.
- An incredibly idiotic and confusing move where Detective Muldoon tries to stop the curse before it makes her hurt her son by taking herself AND him to the house.
- The film feels pointless as it's obvious everyone was going to die since it takes place between the first film and the second film.
- The actual little ghost girl for this movie, Melinda Landers, looks and is basically a rip-off of Samara Morgan from The Ring.
Redeeming Qualities
- The actors give magnificent performances, especially Andrea Riseborough, John Cho, and Lin Shaye.
- The makeup effects for the ghosts are amazing and nightmarish.
- Much like The Grudge 3, the idea of bringing the Ju-On curse to America is a pretty good idea, but it was unfortunately not given to its full potential.
Reception
The Grudge has received negative reviews, who criticized its weak plot, shallow characters, and reliance on jump scares, but praised its performances and atmosphere. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 21% based on 124 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Dull and derivative, the rebooted Grudge wastes a talented cast and filmmaker on watered-down scares that may leave viewers nursing grievances of their own.". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "F" on an A+ to F scale (one of only 22 films to receive the rating, as of April 2020), while those at PostTrak gave it an average of 0.5 out of 5 stars.
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