The Grudge (2004)

It is said in Japan that when a person dies in extreme sorrow or rage, the emotion remains, becoming a stain upon that place. Death becomes a part of that place, killing everything it touches. Once you have become a part of it, it will never let you go.

Yupp, it's The Grudge again! The modern-day haunted house. The love story tragedy. The place that kills everyone who goes inside it, though ironically enough it's the victim who does all of the killing, not the one who killed her...

This is the Americanized version of the movie with the same name from 2002, and though it's been drastically modernized I can't say everything is better. They do have some famous actors. Seeing Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr and Clea DuVall retry roles for such a cult classic was fun, and some of the scary scenes were redone proper, but some of them... I guess it's hard to get everything right. Some things become American. Faster. More visual. It's just not as moody as the original was, even though I'm happy it actually still takes place in Japan, unlike so many of the other American remakes (it's actually directed by the same director too).

In the end I expected it to be worse than it was, considering it's the re-adaption that it is. It wasn't bad. It comes really close to the original, cutting some scenes, adding others, polishing some, ruining others... if you've seen the first one there's really not much reason to see this one as well though. Unless you wouldn't mind basically seeing it again.

 rated 3/5: not bad