Japanese remake successfully updates haunted house tale

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

THE GRUDGE (PG-13) Three Stars (Good) An effective, unsettling remake of Japanese haunted house thriller, directed by the same filmmaker on the same Tokyo sets, but with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Bill Pullman and other Yanks in the leads. Takashi Shimizu directs. Columbia, 95 minutes.

Heck, they even insisted he set the remake in Japan, and even use many of the same sets and Japanese supporting case. The only concession to Western filmgoers is the presence of stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Bill Pullman and a handful of other Yanks.

The result is the umpteenth variation of the haunted house tale, but with enough spooky style to call it a success. For openers, it generates its fright in a relatively small, minimalist Japanese house, which is quite a change from the sprawling Victorian mansions that are more typically haunted in most horror flicks.

Shimizu jumps all over the time frame and the narrative arc for nearly half the film, so "The Grudge" initially seems like little more than a laundry list of typical fright scenes — in the closet, in the stairwell, in the bathtub filled with murky water, on the phone message machine, in the mirror. A black cat even jumps out at one point — surely the cliche to end all fright cliches.

But despite the familiarity of such basic elements, Shimizu creates a pervasive, unsettled mood, and eventually rewards patient filmgoers with sequences that tie together the movie's disparate parts into something that's vaguely logical (at least if you're willing to believe in ghosts).

The title is explained by a Tokyo cop who says some Japanese believe if a person dies in a stage of rage or extreme sorrow, a curse (or grudge) remains behind, to be carried out by his unsettled spirit. (It's not much different than the typical excuse for haunting spirits in American tales: A disquiet mood and incomplete business.)

If you're a fan of the genre, don't miss the film's Web site — doyouhaveagrudge.com — that invites viewers to explore the movie's haunted set and experience several frights.