The Grudge (2020) Screen Gems/Horror RT: 93 minutes Rated R (disturbing violence and bloody images, terror, some language) Director: Nicolas Pesce Screenplay: Nicolas Pesce Music: The Newton Brothers Cinematography: Zachary Galler Release date: January 3, 2020 (US) Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Lin Shaye, Jacki Weaver, John J. Hansen, Frankie Faison, Junko Bailey, William Sadler, Tara Westwood, David Lawrence Brown, Zoe Fish. Box Office: $21.2M (US)/$49.5M (World)
Rating: ***
I had absolutely no reason to expect The Grudge to be any good. First, I thought it would be a remake of the American remake of the 2002 Japanese horror film Ju-On: The Grudge. Second, it’s the first new movie release of the year which is always a tricky proposition. Third, last year’s first movie Escape Room was actually pretty good. I figured the chances of two in a row were closer to none than slim. In total defiance of the odds against it, The Grudge is actually quite good.
Let’s now address each item on the list. The Grudge, written and directed by Nicolas Pesce (The Eyes of My Mother), is NOT a remake or a reboot. The makers are calling it a “sidequel” in that it takes place around the same time as the 2004 movie and its 2006 sequel. The supernatural events depicted in the new movie originate from the same house in Tokyo as well. While the premise is more or less the same, this entry is darker and bloodier.
Looking back over the past decade, the first weekend of the year mostly offered up lame fright flicks like The Devil Inside, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, The Woman in Black 2, The Forest, and Underworld: Blood Wars. Why should The Grudge be any different? I steeled myself for an excruciating 90+ minutes only to be drawn into a compelling and unsettling scary story.
It works like this. When somebody dies in a fit of rage, a curse is born. It manifests itself as a vengeful spirit and possesses all those who encounter it. When that person is eventually killed (after he or she does some killing), the curse is reborn. It’s a vicious cycle. In this new The Grudge, it all starts in ’04 when live-in nurse Fiona (Westwood, Hell Girl) flees that cursed house in Tokyo after encountering its supernatural inhabitants. She brings the curse with her when she returns home to 44 Reyburn Drive located in a small Pennsylvania town. When she kills her family, another curse is born.
The main focus of The Grudge is Muldoon (Riseborough, Mandy), a widowed police detective who’s just moved to town with her young son Burke (Hansen). It’s a new start for both of them as they’re still dealing with the death of her husband/his father from cancer. She’s partnered with Detective Goodman (Bichir, The Hateful Eight) who’s still haunted by the murders at 44 Reyburn Drive two years earlier. They’re called to the scene of the discovery of a decomposing body. It turns out the victim has a connection to the same house. Goodman wants nothing to do with the case. Muldoon, on the other hand, starts looking into it. What she finds is, of course, terrifying and dangerous.
Using the same fragmented narrative style as its predecessors, The Grudge introduces us to other characters affected by the curse including the married real estate agents, Peter (Cho, Searching) and Nina (Gilpin, Isn’t It Romantic), trying to sell the house and the old couple, William (Faison, The Silence of the Lambs) and Faith (Shaye, the Insidious films), that moves in. Like the others, they too are dealing with major personal problems. Nina is carrying a baby that will be born with a fatal genetic disorder; she and her husband are trying to decide whether to keep it or abort it. Faith is terminally ill and suffers from dementia. William brings in assisted suicide consultant Lorna (Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook) in hopes that she will guide his wife to a better place.
Although The Grudge has its share of “BOO!” scenes, it’s as much scary as it is unsettling. Pesce creates a foreboding, oppressive atmosphere where already sad people must deal with supernatural entities hiding in the shadows waiting to pop out of the darkness. Once the curse infects them, their lives go downhill. In Pesce’s hands, the entities feel different from the CGI ghosts of previous Grudge movies. They’re more than mere plot devices; they’re manifestations of grief, ruthless and always present. The cinematography by Zachary Galler is suitably bleak while The Newton Brothers’ score is positively haunting. The R rating allows for Pesce to show some truly horrifying images like a rotting corpse sitting in front of a TV in a living room.
The performances in The Grudge are uniformly good, but I’d like to single out Lin Shaye as the movie’s stand-out. She’s the movie’s “WOW!” factor. First heard as a wailing voice inside the house, the camera approaches her from behind as her cries grow louder. When she finally turns around, it’s a frightening sight. Then we get her story, mainly from her husband who speaks of their 50 years together in loving terms. Their being in this house is something of a blessing in disguise as he goes on to explain. Her story lends a sense of gravitas to the proceedings. Faison is also very good as the husband. However, the star of the show is Riseborough and she crushes it. Sad but tough, she tries to move on with her life for the sake of her son. Weaver has a great scene where she’s terrorized in a supermarket. William Sadler (Die Hard 2) has a strong supporting role as a cop affected by the curse.
I don’t know if everybody will like The Grudge as much as I do. It’s not your typical horror movie. For one thing, Pesce is no hack director. Although I didn’t like his last film Piercing, the man has a style that goes against mainstream. He’s not afraid to go for the jugular and show gruesome images. At the same time, he gets the viewer on a deeper, visceral level. The Grudge is a bleak, unsettling movie that will clearly turn off viewers looking for a fun Friday night fright flick. It’s NOT a date movie. It’s horror as it should be. And if it’s indicative of what to expect in 2020, it’s going to be a pretty good year for movies. Happy New Year indeed.
