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In January of 2005 , I was a 12 - year - old in my first year of third-year high . After a period of fitting , I finally made a friend , Ivan , who I ’m very lucky to still have in my life . Ivan and I bonded over several things , but one of them was a Japanese revulsion movie , which he exact was the scary matter he had ever watch . As it so happened , the movie , titledJu - On : The Grudge , was about to receive an English - language remakestarring Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself , Sarah Michelle Gellar . The more Ivan tell me about the story , the more intrigued I became , and so , on January 29 , I drag my female parent and my sister to the close cinema to watch it with me , and my life was never the same .
To sayThe Grudgewas the scariest flick I had ever seen would be an understatement . Now , I ’ll be the first to admit I ’m not really a bragging horror rooter — I ’m scared of theCloverfieldmonster , for cry out loud — but there was something aboutThe Grudgethat felt nonrational and truly ghost . As a motion picture , The Grudgeis not the apex of horror ; indeed , it ’s not even the best J - revulsion remaking of the 2000s — to me , that pureness start toGore Verbinski ’s introspectiveThe Ring .
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However , The Grudgeis so unabashedly terrifying in a agency few other revulsion moving-picture show are : It takes mirthfulness in your terror , and you may tell while watching it . On its twentieth anniversary , it ’s meter to look back on the legacy ofThe Grudge , the most effective horror movie of the 2000s and a generation - defining triumph that merit far more deference than it gets .
A curse as old as time
The Grudgetells a non - linear floor focusing on several characters who all come in contact with a secret business firm in Tokyo . Gellar play Karen , a social prole commit to the house to care for Emma ( Grace Zabriskie ) , a dementedness - ridden woman whose previous assistance , Yoko ( Yōko Maki ) , has cryptically gone drop . Karen soon learns the house is haunted by the tone of a family who died there under extreme cult or ruefulness . Now condemn to forever stalk the place where they perished , the family — murderous husband Takeo ( Takashi Matsuyama ) , married woman Kayako ( Takako Fuji ) , and young son Toshio ( Yuya Ozeki ) — aim and gruesomely kills anyone who steps into the house . The film is base on the 2002 original , directed by Takashi Shimizu , who returned to lead the remaking . join Gellar are great epithet like Clea DuVall and Bill Pullman , plus Fuji and Matsuyama reprising their function from the master copy .
Like most revulsion pic of the time , The Grudgereceived mixed reviewsfrom mainstream critics . The recurring complaint was that the secret plan was too convoluted , an argument that , frankly , seems like a skill offspring since the plot is anything but ; it ’s just out of chronological monastic order , and believe me , it ’s noMemento . The 2d vernacular complaint was that the film lacked unfeigned scares ; the Rotten Tomatoes consensus even goes so far as to say how it lacks “ much in the fashion of logic or sincerely jarring scare , ” another bizarre complaint because what freaking movie were these people watching ?
Much of my recollection ofThe Grudgerelies on the fact that I was a 12 - year - onetime take in a movie that I was morbidly fascinated by but woefully unprepared for , and I can imagine a lot of people in 2004 were in the same boat . By the early 2000s , horror was a mixture of either campy slasher movies spawned fromthe success of 1996’sScream , The Sixth Sense - wannabes , or elaborated efforts likeFinal Destination , which were more lurid than outright scary . It was in this environment that J - revulsion get in the scene , revolutionize and challenging our expected value from the revulsion music genre .
1998’sRinglaunched a new subgenre that focused more on atmospheric dread rather than outright jump scares . These film featured a distinct brand of ghostly phantasm : pallid - skinned woman with long , black pilus and scantily seen faces . TheRing‘s Sadako Yamamura became the poster shaver of this trope and remains so to this twenty-four hours .
J - horror balance whole on westerly audiences ’ fear of the unidentified . report of exoticization and fascination with the East also came into frolic , but J - horror was so effective with early 2000s audience because it appealed to their psyches as much as it did to their morbid curiosity . The subgenre exploded followingTheRing‘s success , but it reached its apex withThe Grudge , followed by middling picnic likeDark WaterandOne Missed Call . In hindsight , The Grudgereally was the high the subgenre could climb with Western audiences , and the truly abysmal character of everything that come after it only confirms it .
Horror for horror’s sake
I attribute much of the negative response forThe Grudgeto those expecting anotherThe Ring . Indeed , Gore Verbinski ’s 2002 remake starring two - time Oscar nominee Naomi Wattsreceived positive reviewsfor its patient , clinical , and introspective coming to horror , confine the jump panic attack toone memorable conniption . Yet , The Grudgewent in the paired counselling . You asked for a repugnance film , and it delivered over and over and over again . WhereasThe Ringpatiently waited to showcase its one major and now - iconic repulsion set piece until its third act , The Grudgeplaced its jump panic at the start , halfway , and ending .
To verbalise aboutThe Grudgeis to talk about its many memorable scenes , many of which have become landmarks in horror , especially for millennials . There ’s that scene where a terrified Clea DuVall , repel catatonic by fear , sentinel as the tiddler Toshio kill her husband . There ’s the opening , where Yoko is dragged into the attic by a brutal Kayako . Then there ’s the scene where Karen see Kayako ’s reflection in a bus windowpane , a moment where I distinctively remember drown a screaming so loud that I was convert the full motion picture dramatic art had noticed , but no one had ; everyone was as shocked as I was , or at least that ’s what my 12 - class - honest-to-goodness self believed .
See , the usual rule in horror is to not go anywhere alone , and you ’ll be safe(r ) ; invalidate the dark and do n’t go back to the scene of the offense , and maybe you ’ll be OK . But here was this Kayako creature scaring the bejesus out of Sarah Michelle Gellar ona bus full of peopleinbroad daylightwhilemiles off from the freaking evil house . What is the deal ? !
The motion-picture show ’s pièce de résistance , of course , is the now - iconic view in the third enactment where Kayako crawl out of her dead body bagful and descends the stairway on all - fours , her chill death rattle , result from a broken neck opening , overtake Christopher Young ’s eerie score . What ’s most powerful about this setting is Gellar and co - star Jason Behr ’s chemical reaction : They are not yell or exclaim or trying to escape ; instead , they just lie in there in transparent shock and panic , unable to move because they cognise there really is no point .
As an consultation member , this present moment is a catgut punch , the surrendering of the human spirit and the acknowledgment that selection is out of the question . Horror trust solely on survival instinct ; it ’s what has keep us from die despite years of killing each other . Scenes like this one represent the honest frustration of humanity and the somber realisation that there ’s something far more muscular and inescapable waiting for everyone .
The Grudgehas many moments like this conniption , and it flaunts them with unlimited enthusiasm . It takes pleasure in twist the knife , never allowing its audience to so much as catch their breath ; just when you think you have a breathing spell , bam ! There ’s Yoko without her jaw . Few horror films in the 2000s — indeed , few repulsion film at all take in such an unembarrassed and generous approach to their scares , butThe Grudgeoffers an embarrassment of riches . surely , not all are particularly strong ; there ’s a rather lightheaded aspect where a paw comes out of Gellar ’s head while she ’s bathing , which was hard promote at the time but remains as slaphappy now as it was then . And yet , The Grudgewas still harrowingly terrifying — it might not even be an exaggeration to call it traumatizing .
A legacy of terror
For good and defective , The Grudgedefined my percept of horror . After seeing it , I was so frightened that I could n’t be alone , afraid that Toshio was hold off for me under the bottom covers . I could n’t bath alone , either , so my parent and sister would wait for me outside the door , talking to distract me . I slept with the luminosity on for months , far longer than I care to take , and I give thanks god that I lived in an apartment where I did n’t have to see staircases of any variety .
And yet , I remained hypnotised with the movie , to the point where , once I felt unattackable enough , I watch the original Japanese photographic film and its continuation , the latter of which include a scene so mortifying that I , to this day , often appear back before rest my bed on the pillow at Nox . Of course , I also saw the much inferior sequel , The Grudge 2 ; Ivan and I were there on opening twenty-four hour period , the one time in my scholarly career that I skipped class ( the movie was not deserving it , but the experience was ) .
Over the years , my veneration of Kayako and Toshio has belittle . Scary Movie 4helped a great deal , and so did the sincerely hilarious 2016 filmSadako vs. Kayako , which mark the two with child icons of watt second - repugnance in aSuper Smash Bros.-like expiry match ( if you have n’t watched it , you absolutely must ; it rightfully is priceless ) . Still , their effect on my psyche loiter ; I even concede I jerk a bit while looking for the images for this article . That ’s the power of a great horror movie : It provoke and brand its audience , making them uncomfortably cognizant of their mortality .
IsThe Grudgea great picture show ? No . It ’s notThe Exorcistof our coevals , nor is it some breakthrough in its genre . And yet , it is a seminal entering in any millennian ’s horror education , a genuine before - and - after in any cinephile who saw it during their formative years . More likeThe Ring , The Grudgeis the ultimate embodiment of J - horror , a near - utter encapsulation of everything audiences looked for in these movies during the other 2000s .
Today , more than ever , The Grudgeis a treasure of noughties cinema , one of the few movies that utterly seize a certain time and place and the sensibility and style that qualify it . Is it as scary as it once was ? possibly ? True , we have become near - desensitize to gore and violence , but there is still something central aboutThe Grudge , a upsetting chill that runs through the back any time you hear a creaking door . plow around , and you ’ll for sure find nothing , but the fact you turned at all verbalise to the movie ’s staying index .
The Grudgeis useable tostream on Peacock .
