The Grudge 2 Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: The curse has spread to an apartment building in the USA after a failed attempt to burn down the Saeki house.

Review: Like the previous remake, I don't know why this entry receives as much hate as it does. The problems with originality and such, again, go back to Takashi Shimizu for taking the story in this direction. This is his baby so you can't fault Hollywood entirely for making this story completely out of the unused elements of "Ju-on: The Grudge" and parts of "Ju-on: The Curse 2." As I mentioned before, I think this is the second best Kayako looks in the whole franchise so she definitely feels scarier this time around. In fact, there are better scares overall compared to the last film. There were even more subtle shots such as when the Allison character first goes into the closet that leads to the attic in the Saeki house and we see a glimpse of Kayako lurking in the shadows; little touches like this go a long way for me. The new lead, Aubrey, (played by Amber Tamblyn) brings a new perspective compared to the Karen character, since they're supposed to be sisters, whereby she seems more saddened and it feels more appropriate that Kayako would integrate with her as she did with the Rika character from "Ju-on: The Grudge." As for moving half the story to the USA, I suppose they felt this was necessary since they were exhausting ridiculous reasons to have Americans running around Japan. Oh, but they still found ways to have more there! This was one of my biggest complaints about the first film and yet we have more foreigners as the leads in Japan! Was it so hard to find Japanese stars that speak english? Or could they not just get some Japanese Americans? Ugh! The only Japanese characters they added, besides the Saeki crew, was a teacher we see for a second or two and one of the schoolgirls that lures Allison to the Saeki house, named Miyuki. Eh, she's cute enough, played by Misako Uno, but she was a terrible actress and delivers some horrible lines. They also slipped in Edison Chen, as if he's Japanese, although he does have a line about being from Hong Kong (yeah, you better dude), but he did a good job as a reporter trying to get to the bottom of the Saeki murders. Oh, and don't even get me started on Kayako's mom speaking english and a bullshit origin story for Kayako! FUCK! But back to the bad acting, there is quite the abundance to go around. It's funny too because some of these actors have gone on to better roles, but they were terrible here. My last gripe is that the ending was predictable. More so, it was so unbelievably predictable, I seriously have to wonder did they think the audience would not see it coming a million miles away?! The gist is that some girl has brought the curse back from Japan and it has spread to this apartment building, but we all knew it was Allison and not Aubrey! The way the music plays, the recap shots, and just the presentation makes it seem as if it was some big revelation that it wasn't Aubrey. Supporting this is the fact they even deleted the scene of Allison being followed by the ghosts of the other schoolgirls because that would obviously tell the audience right there. In the end, I do like this movie because I felt it pulled off some successful scares, a decent story, and of course that great musical score from Christopher Young. On the other hand, the acting mostly sucks, many contrivances, and not enough new material added to warrant a view from veterans of the franchise. I'd say it's worth a view just to see how creepy Kayako looks in this version, but "Ju-on: The Grudge 2" is, by far, the superior sequel.

Notable Moment: When Kayako comes for Miyuki at the love hotel. Besides some terrible acting, Miyuki, played by Misako Uno, delivers a hilarious line that I still make fun of to this day. She's cute though.

Final Rating: 6.5/10