THE GRUDGE
US, 2004, 92 minutes, Colour.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Ka Dee Strickland, Grace Zabriskie, Rosa Blasi, William Mapother, Todd Remy, Yoko Maki, Takako Fuji, Clea Du Val, Bill Pullman, Yuua Ozeki.
Directed by Takashi Shimuzu.
Sometimes a foreign director is invited to Hollywood to remake his film in English with an American audience specifically in mind. This happened to Dutch George Sluizer for The Vanishing and Danish Ole Bornedal for Nighwatch. The films are then highly criticised for not being as good as the original. Now Takashi Shimizu has remade The Grudge. He was permitted to film in Japan with a Japanese crew. However, the screenplay was adapted for American sensibilities and the central roles taken by Americans. And it was inevitable that everyone would say that something was lost in translation.
Lost is not exactly the right word. The film retains the feel and look of Japan and its world of spirits and violent vengeance. The actors playing the ghost mother and child repeat their roles (and they had played them in the video movie as well as the Japanese cinema version). The screenplay relies on the Japanese atmosphere and how sympathetic Americans respond to it and are then terrorised by it.
As with the original, the plot is not easy to follow as there are several time shifts that are not ‘realistic’. As with the original, there are plenty of shocks and screams heightened by more expensive special effects. The Grudge looks good and is well crafted. Since it a horror show it does not have to be a dramatic masterpiece but has to create a sense of eeriness about people becoming victims to the fury of the ghosts in the haunted house.
A group of young actors led by Sarah Michelle Geller have to spend a lot of time being terrified. Veterans Bill Pullman and Grace Zabriskie bring experience to the enterprise – which, on its profitable release for Halloween 2004, seems to have worked particularly well on audiences wanting a scare.
1. The popularity of Japanese horror films in the late 90s and the beginning of the 21st century? Their international appeal? The Americans remaking them?
2. The original director directing the Hollywood version? Comparisons between the two? His keeping the Japanese actors as ghosts? The American cast?
3. Keeping the plot in Japan, the English-speaking enclave in Tokyo? Their meeting the Japanese? The encounter of two different cultures, traditions, attitudes towards spirits and ghosts? Towards violence? A satisfying blend of studying the two cultures?
4. The Tokyo settings, Japan and its beauty, the streets, the homes, the offices? The interiors? The sinister aspects of the haunted building? The stairs, the rooms, the closets? The building up of atmosphere? The musical score?
5. The plausibility of the plot, Japanese beliefs in spirits? The contrast with American attitudes? Americans caught up in this atmosphere of fear?
6. The background of the horror, the murders in the house, the husband killing his wife, his son, the cat, suicide? Her diary? The grudge? The visualising of the black shadow of the grudge? Permeating the house? Attacking all those connected with the house? The appearances of the ghosts, their sinister look? The vengeful mother? The child and his appearances for example appearing at every level as the lift ascended?
7. The care worker, Yoko, her going to the house, the ghostly presence, the violence? Her caring for Emma, an American, her age, dementia, confined to the house? Karen and her being assigned to take Yoko’s place? Her involvement in the grudge and the ghostly appearances?
8. The character of Karen, student, her relationship with Doug, working for the care agency, her research? Alex her boss? His sending her to the house, taking Yoko’s place? Her arrival at the home, her finding Toshio in the closet, the assumption that he had been physically abused? The ghostly appearance of his mother? Her realisation that they were ghosts? The consequences, her coping, her fears?
9. The ghosts, the attack on Matthew, on Jennifer? The delineation of their characters, relationship? Their deaths? The attic – and the jawbone of the care worker, Yoko?
10. Matthew’s sister, the phone call, her dead brother, the mother and the child ghosts pursuing her, going to the apartment, her fears and death?
11. The detective, his investigations, discovery of the bodies, with Karen? The detective work?
12. Karen, her finding out about the house, the discovery of the truth? The inspector and the information of his two colleagues, working the case, their mysterious disappearances? The irony of Yoko appearing in Alex’s office – and their deaths?
13. The academic, Peter, the photograph in the house? The flashbacks to Peter, his life, research? The irony of the mother stalking Peter? His death?
14. The climax, Karen and Doug, the inspector, going to the house, the possibility of ending the haunting? The explosion? Karen still living – other deaths, the ghosts still present, the possibility of sequel?
15. Audience enjoyment of this kind of frightening film? The shocks, the appearances of the ghosts, the violence, scary scenes (Susan and her hiding under the blanket to find the ghost there)?
