Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a couple reviews from test screenings of THE GRUDGE, the US remake of JU-ON: THE GRUDGE, which is, in my opinion, scarier than both the original and US remake of THE RING. There's something about JU-ON that really makes my skin crawl... I think it's that sound combined with the crawling ghost... Creepy! I'm looking forward to the US remake, directed by the original JU-ON director Takashi Shimizu, but am nervous about the WB casting... I've heard that two different cuts were tested last wek... An R-rated cut and a PG-13 rated cut and the PG-13 cut apparantly scored higher. What's brilliant about the original is the graphic, in your face terror and the tension so thick it's almost suffocating. So, a well cut PG-13 version I guess wouldn't be too bad, as long as it doesn't take away from the material (ie the PG-13 version of ALIENS and PREDATOR that's out in theaters currently). Anyway, let's see what these folks two folks thought:
Hey Harry,
There was a screening of Takashi Shimizu’s The Grudge in Culver City last night. Just wanted to send you my thoughts on the movie. I will preface this by saying, I’ve rented Ju-On: The Grudge at my local video store and as I haven’t really followed the Japanese vs. American versions of this movie am a little confused. The Japanese movie I rented was only an hour long and although they had part 2 at the store I didn’t rent it.
I’ve heard that the American version wasn’t a true remake and was an individual story of the haunted house. Sorry to disappoint but besides a few small storyline changes this is almost exactly the same movie I saw on video with Sarah Michelle Gellar in it. I think they merged Parts 1 and 2 into one movie.
The screening guy came told us it was an early cut without color correction, temp music, etc. And I hope they are going to work on it a little more. The pacing was strange, slightly erratic. Some of the scenes seemed chopped and went by too quickly (ie: a character running seemingly far across town and then suddenly they are in front of the house.) Also the ending was trying to be ambiguous, which is a good thing, but ended up being incoherent. Let’s hope they finesse it a little before the movie is released. And if the studio happens to be reading this, don’t make it a happy ending! Just give us a few more breadcrumbs to whatever the hell was going on.
The acting was just ok. Sarah Michelle Gellar could have been replaced with any one of the generic WB actresses. Same with the guy from Roswell. All of the characters were really bland. It was nice to see Ted Raimi in his few scenes but again he was given next to nothing to do. I guess this movie really is about the evil spirits, and here is where the movie more than succeeded. They are fucking scary. The people in the audience with me were crapping their pants! Even with all of my complaints, this is one hell of a rollercoaster ride. People were screaming and covering their eyes, it was really great fun.
I’m sure people will complain about small similarities between this and The Ring; like the video tape scene, flies, and scary dead girls with long dark stringy hair, but this movie is a lot scarier. I wish there was a tighter storyline around the house’s ghosts. I wish someone like Ehren Kruger had been hired to clean up the story and give us some characters we really care about. As the movie stands right now, it is extremely scary. A great rollercoaster-ride of a movie. I think this is one of Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Productions first pictures. If this is a good indicator of what we can expect from GH Productions, horror fans should rejoice. This film is deadly serious, no sign of tongues-in-cheek anywhere. Thank god that trend has gone. This film is closer to 70’s small budget horror films that I used to catch Saturday afternoons when I was a kid. So I think this will be a modest hit if they tighten it up in the proper places. I’m sure film geeks will say the original is much better but I had a blast. I will definitely go again when it opens to see what they’ve changed.
If you are able to use this. Call me...
NeWt
The next review is more on the negative side, with the opinion that this is a rip-off of THE RING. To a degree, he's not incorrect, but like I said above, I think the original JU-ON beats the hell out of any of the RING films or remakes, but that may just be me. Here's Dr. Frankenstein! "That's Frankenschteen." You're putting me on!
First timer here to drop a note about seeing a screening of "The Grudge," which should be better known as "The Ring Part Deux." Just a quick summary for those who don't know, pic concerns a house where things go bump all the time. Sarah G. is called in to take care of an elderly woman who has a habit of staring blankly ahead and talking to ghosts. It's not long before Sarah has her first encounter with "the things." After the experience she decides to do some sleuthing to figure out what she's seen and what happened at this house to cause the evil. Death, scares, and some gore follow. Again, "The Ring Part Deaux."
As always we were told this was still a rough cut and missing elements, but it looked pretty finished to me. I'd say they have half a movie here as half of it should be cut out. The moments of "boo" were fairly decent and entertaining. The story is practically non-existent and raises many unanswered questions. The acting was fair to terrible. Sarah G. needs a few more life experiences to draw from. Her boyfriend in the pic is just one more Calvin Klein model who needs to stay in print. Nice turn from Ted Raimi. He got several big laughs. He was probably the only character to care for other than the detective investigating the strange happenings. Good use of sound fx to let you know bad news is coming. Music track was temp, so no comment there. Decent special effects, as in a scene where you see a character with a missing jaw.
Overall, nothing special here. You've seen it before, and possibly more so if you saw the original. Borders on bad except for a couple scenes of suspense. Rent on video if you're curious, unless some amazing editing occurs along with a week of reshoots.
Yours Truly,
DOCTOR FRANKENSCHTEEN
