The Grudge

I enjoyed it. It was full of jump scares (like the other _Grudge_ films) but those were to be expected. Overall, this had more of a sinister/creepy feel rather than actual horror; you knew stuff was going to happen but still, the overall feel of the movie left you with that apprehensive sensation. The storyline itself, to me, was kind of a muddled mess; it was so jumbled and jumped from one family story to another that (again, speaking just for me) it was kind of confusing to follow. The 2019 version had less of a "horror" vibe than the original film, but it was still an enjoyable fright flick. Again, your mileage may vary depending on your appetite. Obviously there are those fans of the original who feel quite vehemently about this particular film but I enjoyed it.

Looks pretty good, try it

I went to a preview screening for this movie.

For the positives:
- there are some really good scores in this movie
- the title card flashes up in japanese which is a nice tribute
- the practical effects look amazing
- the casting is really good - at times the mother looks like she's on the verge of a mental breakdown
- some of the dialogue is really touching and heartbreaking
- strongly developed small-town cop feels
- some of the characters have really good backstories
- grief is a strong theme in this movie

But the negative...oh goodness. The idea of the curse...basically a police officer takes the curse back with her from Japan and it infects her house. Despite this being a movie with several main character police officers, there is no investigation. They do not actually investigate the curse at all, because a previous character did all of it before. You dont get to see any of the discovery, you dont even get to see anything in Japan.

This movie is not scary. You don't see any chasing or stalking, you don't see any deaths until the end of the movie. It is all jump scare/fade to black. The CGI does not look good. The cadavers spewing flies look very fake. The blood splatter scene where the mother stabs herself in the neck looks very fake. The blood particularly looks almost pixelated on the stained glass window. I just can't understand that there are no real chase /stalking or fighting the bad monster scenes. It feels like a tribute to The Grudge in that they couldn't show the monster because they couldn't afford it in the budget. The Grudge aspect in this film is more like vengeful spirit possession, less tied to the idea of a monster personifying a grudge brought on my death.

The tonal shifts are really confusing as is the direction the movie goes in. It feels like the director wanted to make a well-shot western film or something like There Will Be Blood, but only got a horror movie instead. Some character and story elements are really underused. The main character has a son but he's in like 10% of the movie. They have a dog but it isn't even in more than 3 scenes?

Overall I'm just really disappointed since I thought it started pretty strong.

The movie was quite average, wish there was more of a presence of the actual Grudge ghost, and not just the possession of characters. I do like what they did with the different interlocking storylines.
Another thing that didn’t reach my expectations is the prevalence of Japanese folklore and the lack of it. The film only mentioned Japan when referring to one of the past movies.
Overall, definitely not the worst movie, but I feel that it had much more potential to up the horror factor but also the Japanese culture factor.

This was, disappointing to say the least. Though it was a good idea in theory to add seperate storylines, I felt they were a bit disjointed and didn't flow well. I also felt the movie lacked a build up of tension necessary to really add punch to the jump scares they added. Overall, not a complete waste of time, just not what I hoped for.

Let's just say "horror" word should not be in the genre section of this movie, mystery is good ... Actually if you start on that basis then you'll probably not be so "what just happened?" at the end of it all :)).

Somehow watchable .. i can relate to the haunting ... I am also haunted IRL :(

Reboot is not great! Movie is called Grudge but where is she!

what a pile of shit

It was disappointing. Guess I was just expecting more than what the movie had.
Someone in the theater stood up immediately after it ended and said “what a wasted ” which was exactly how I felt too.