It’s a ritual that’s almost as predictable as a Marvel movie in May or a romantic movie in February: a new horror movie is released every first weekend in January. It is noteworthy enough that this once sterile weekend has become a niche horror vacation of its own. But in some cases the films were even good – or at least respectable for the historically low standards of January films. Sometimes these relaxed standards are a relief after a season of blockbusters and awards lures. Films like Escape Room from last year or Insidious: The Last Key from 2018 are effective little genre pictures.
The Grudge, the latest American version of the Japanese horror film Ju-On from 2002, is not the best January horror film in recent years. But it can be most of January. It is not characterized by low rental prices. If anything, his pace is handsome and reserved compared to desperately frightening jumping machines. Instead, this 2020 version of The Grudge has the tired, discouraging feeling of a January afternoon. It has no snow or visible breath, but the writer and director Nicolas Pesce (My Mother’s Eyes) uses a high-contrast but grainy color scheme, pale whites, and deliberately monotonous decoration to give the film’s generic on-site setting a special touch gritty, cloudy gloom.
This gray feeling is also reflected in the main characters: the recently widowed Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough), who is new to the city with her young son and has the usual saying about how to start over, looks exhausted before she is concerned with the origins of a long story at all -Rotting corpse. Her new partner, Detective Goodman (Demián Bichir), smokes in a dingy, crowded house with subdued, yellowish light.
“It never fails. Every time I wash my car, a bloody spirit of revenge gets in. “Photo: Allen Fraser / Sony Pictures
The detectives’ investigation into the body in the middle is the backbone of this version of The Grudge. But like the 2004 US remake and its 2006 sequel (both seem to be consistent with this sequel, which is mostly in its recent release years), the new film uses overlapping stories across multiple timelines to produce a standard edition consider thread-haired vengeance from different angles. There is an old couple (Lin Shaye from the Insidious series and Frankie Faison) who is looking for help from an assisted suicide guru (Jacki Weaver), and a younger couple (John Cho and Betty Gilpin) who are dealing with a difficult one Pregnancy choice. They are all connected to a house with the mind hanging around, with a strong taste for the bathroom. There are fears of a shower, bathtub, and sink that are reminiscent of the heyday of the original film in the mid-2000s.
The parallel stories are all steeped in sadness and loss and add to the film’s seriousness in winter. (Though there’s a big laugh that relieves the tension, a cut through a figure that zips up her suitcase to get rid of hell.) The 2004 Grudge was also a dark affair, but part of a wave of PG-13 -Remakes of Japanese horror films with most of the atmosphere drained. Pesce was given the leeway for an R-rating, primarily to make every dead or undead body as dirty and lazy as possible. Even if characters survive, they are physically shaped by their experiences, like the man who survives a gunshot wound where his face has healed to twisted scars. The film is not particularly scary, but it has a creepy, ubiquitous fierceness that is well portrayed by the impressive ensemble.
These new organic alarm clocks are the worst. Photo: Allen Fraser / Sony Pictures
However, it is never clear what all this doggedness is for or what people like Cho, Riseborough, Bichir and the others are doing here. “This will never end,” warns one of the characters who is familiar with years of haunted attempts. They speak according to the subtext of a longstanding horror franchise, especially a secondary concern like the Grudge saga. However, the film does not combine this feeling with the lively traumas of the characters. Pesce doesn’t seem to have much to say about parents’ decisions, end-of-life conflicts or hopelessness of grief.
This latest batch of existential ailments is all just resentment feed, which is especially strange since the film has to expose the origins of the ghost above on-screen text: the ghost / demon is summoned when a person dies in extreme rage. However, since this ghost follows a character who returned from Japan at the beginning of the film, this initial anger (regardless of whether it comes from previous films or not) is second-hand and unrelated to the stories of the other characters.
The Grudge jumps straight to hopelessness and sometimes borders on nihilism, and Pesce’s style is not enough to liven up the depressed mood. It’s not uncommon for a horror film to reach a dead end of its own creation, caught between the desire to unravel a story and leave tension behind for a frightening audience. If The Grudge feels a little worse than usual in this regard, it may have concerns about the release date over which the film has no control. Pesce probably did not write or direct this film for January 3rd. But intentionally or not, the film sets a somber tone. It almost seems like saying: if you see a new movie in January, you have to be in a bad place – or you want to watch a movie as soon as possible.
The grudge is now in theaters.
