When a person dies filled with extreme rage, a curse is manifested as a malevolent entity. Passing like a virus from victim to victim, those unfortunate enough to encounter it are subject to an endless cycle of painfully predictable jump scares, guttural groans, contorted Francis Bacon faces, and high pitch orchestration. And for some reason people still think it’s a good idea to hide in dark enclosed spaces…?
Unfortunately for the residents of a small town in Pennsylvania, the infamous J-horror curse has found its way to America thanks to Fiona Landers, who contracted the curse and brought it home to her family after visiting the haunted Tokyo residents of Kayako Saeki. Now they have to put up with the horrors of paranormal clichés, filthy bathtubs, and obnoxious screaming. In a tragically predictable twist, this led to the grisly murders of her family, as well as any future residents and visitors of 44 Reyburn Drive: curiously, shi (4) is regarded as unlucky in Japan as it can also be translated as death. Subtle. And who knew quarantining a ghoulish curse could be so hard? Though perhaps heeding the local advice not to enter a cursed building might be a good start… it would certainly save us from repetitive jump scare strain.
It feels like the walls between this world and the next have been torn down
Detective Muldoon
We are introduced to Andrea Riseborough’s Detective Muldoon who recently moved to Cross River with her son following the death of her husband, with implications that she might not be ready to return to work as a homicide detective. As luck would have it, the discovery of a hideously mangled corpse pulls her into a case that leads back to 44 Reyburn Drive, connecting to other cold cases and, of course, an inevitable encounter with the curse.
Like the first to bear the Grudge name – as well as the Japanese Ju-On original – the narrative follows a non-linear chronological structure as Detective Muldoon uncovers the stories of past Reyburn Drive victims, told to us through dedicated chapters. Each of the families involved with the cursed house live in stressful situations, from a couple whose baby will be born with a rare genetic disorder to an elderly husband struggling to cope with the increasing effects of his wife’s dementia.
Pesce manages to paint a bleak picture before any spooky happenings plague their households, creating depressing backstories for each of the characters – including Detective Muldoon. The moments that show a greater interest in elaborating on their tragic stories and less emphasis on “in-your-face” horror hold a stronger sense of intrigue and manage to build up a tense atmosphere. While the “horror” elements lean too heavily on tired tropes, Pesce succeeds at creating very real, at times upsetting situations – the Matheson’s in particular – that play with our emotions and are vastly more interesting and successful without the generic payoff of seeing gross, unhygienic hands clawing the back of someone’s head in a shower for the umpteenth time. However at times the structure and inevitable “jump scares” make it hard for us to truly connect with any one character and result in a fairly uninspiring narrative.
The structure is styled after a character-based chapter narrative, thematically linked by the way vulnerable people can be cruelly manipulated and, in turn, be made to suffer at the hands of a sadistic force. There is a more harrowing real-world fable here about tragedy and the psychological effects it can hold, which would have made for a more interesting direction if not for the fact that these characters simply are not afforded enough screen time before being transitioned in favour of the next part of Muldoon’s chapter.
Detective Muldoon: What do we do when we’re afraid?
You can guess where this leads later on…
Burke: Close our eyes and count to five
It’s a shame the jump scares are somewhat predictable, giving the impression Saeki’s curse may be running out of new material. In typical Grudge fashion, there are bathroom scares, creepy staircase hauntings, and materialisations of ghouls behind victims hiding in dark closets. Veteran Ghostbusters well acquainted with the supernatural and paranormal activities of J-horror franchises will likely discover a hidden talent for clairvoyance when it comes to anticipating jump scares.
This over reliance on the same tricks often wounds the atmosphere, while Toshio and Kayako Saeki’s absence in this instalment makes it clear that this Grudge movie should be seen as more of a spin-off, or “sidequel” than a true sequel or reboot. In the 2004 The Grudge, Takako Fuji’s movements and guttural croak as she reached out and staggered towards her victims as Kayako held a haunting effect that has become iconic. Reyburn Drive’s own restless, aggressive spirits seem to have taken over the role of the Saeki ghosts, albeit playing out more like a series of Amityville Horror possessions. Connections to the Grudge franchise seem a little tenuous outside of the fact that there are enraged malevolent spirits haunting the cast and the brief role the Saeki house plays during the opening sequence.
Nicholas Pesce’s directorial debuts The Eyes of My Mother (2016) demonstrated a more creative approach to psychological horror, in which Francisca’s childhood trauma fuelled her more disturbing tendencies later in life, with an ending that sustains a chilling, nightmarish effect even after the credits. With the way he was able to create something so psychologically disturbing in such a minimalist black-and-white film, it’s a shame that The Grudge ended up being a rehash of classic scenes and moments from the franchise. While many of these sequences are intended as recalls to the more iconic scare moments, ultimately the end product at times feels like it is being hindered as a result. This isn’t helped much when there is an impression that shadows of “things” in the background had been hastily added in after shooting to add a creepy presence to certain scenes.
We have a firm body, and another one in the house. How many more do we have to find?
Detective Muldoon to Goodman
Perhaps the strength of his entry is the cast, though it is also sadly the case that one of the biggest issues is that while the cast are fantastic, the writing for them isn’t. Lin Shaye’s Faith Matheson is easily the best character and it’s clear Shaye is injecting a lot of energy into the character, yet while Riseborough plays her part well, the writing behind the character is a little weak and uninspired. If anything, this is more a reflection on the quality of the writing than the cast themselves, which is a shame given Pesce’s past indie title had some more unique aspects to it that feel suppressed here in favour of obeying the laws of a preexisting franchise.
Shaye (already experienced with paranormal activities), Frankie Faison and Jacki Weaver add a more realistic, if excruciatingly depressing story to the mix. Lin Shaye’s Faith Matheson suffers from dementia and a terminal illness, and as a result of her rapidly declining sanity her husband William (Frankie Faison) calls Jacki Weaver’s Lorna Moody – an assisted suicide consultant. Naturally, Reyburn’s ghostly inhabitants flock to this trio, though the portrayal of their struggle to cope with the ongoing effects of dementia and the declining state of Faith’s mind comes across as a far more interesting and disturbing angle than the actual ghosts themselves. These scenes are even more potent thanks in particular to Lin Shaye, who portrays Faith Matheson’s condition in a frighteningly realistic manner. Further to this, the gory climax of their chapter makes use of the tragically doomed relationship between the Matheson’s.
Quite the reverse of Lin Shaye’s character, one of the highlight performances – brief as his appearance is – comes from William Sadler’s Detective Wilson, who Muldoon encounters during her investigation. Driven mad by the curse during his own investigation of Reyburn, his chapter leads to some great moments of insanity and body horror.
Andrea Riseborough’s Detective Muldoon, meanwhile, presents the struggling single mother coping with a stressful job following the death of her husband. It’s a trope we’ve seen countless times before, though it is hard to fault Riseborough’s performance. While her troubled mindset does add to the unsettling presence of the ghoulish apparitions that appear before her, bringing us to question the reality of her situation, it is tiresome when a character’s arc hinges on being the struggling single working mother who gets called out for her inability to cope.
Known for the likes of The Haunting of Hill House (2018), Oculus (2014), Doctor Sleep (2019), and a plethora of other Mike Flanagan directorial projects, Andy Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart – or The Newton Brothers – create tense soundscapes that add a sad melancholy to the tragic narrative. Tracks like “Onryō” – a revengeful ghost – uses a dissonant musical box melody, akin to a children’s nursery rhyme that carries an eerie familiarity to it, before industrial haunted effects take over with erratic percussion. Perhaps that eerie familiarity is less eerie however when you consider how frequently tracks like this appear in horror movies now. As is typical from supernatural horror soundtracks, there is a reliance on sound tropes we’ve heard in plenty of other haunted franchises, so even if does add an element of suspense, it lacks interest or uniqueness.
I’m going to murder you with deliciousness
Poor choice of words from Peter Spencer (John Cho)…
It’s fair to say the Grudge franchise really peeked with its original Japanese Ju-On series, before being dumbed down in its American counterparts. Despite an excellent cast and more interesting moody family drama dynamics, it becomes dull and derivative when it tries to pay tribute to the franchise, making the greatest horror of 2020’s The Grudge the recurring nightmare of tired jump scares, boring writing, and uninspired attempts to scare us. At least one thing is consistently horrifying throughout the franchise: the ghosts have poor hygiene! Seeing as this released shortly after the catastrophic Cats adaptation, filmgoers wanting a good scare would do better to see Judi Dench transformed into a horrifying CGI feline that looks more like a poor Instagram filter.
