THE GRUDGE

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Director: Takashi Shimizu
Screenplay: Stephen Susco
Co-starring: Jason Behr, Clea DuVall
US Release Date: 22 October 2004
Gellar's Role: Karen Davis
Length: 92 minutes (theatrical release)
Genre: Horror

Takashi Shimizu directed this remake of the Japanese horror film Ju-on. With Jason Behr, Ted Raimi, and William Mapother. An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a supernatural curse that seems to induce suicide. For some reason this film is shot largely in hallways and stairwells.

Slideshow - The Grudge
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Tod Martin, writing for PopHorror, said: The Grudge is the American remake of the Japanese horror film Ju-On: The Grudge from 2002 and features some of the same people that were involved with the original. Remember when I said that I didn’t think it would be scary? I was wrong. Very, very wrong. I’ll admit that it scared the Hell out of me when I saw it and I had many sleepless nights for weeks afterward because I couldn’t get certain scenes from it out of my mind. As a matter of fact, it was the first movie to truly scare me for years and to this day it still bothers me whenever I think about it occasionally (which is usually late at night when I’m trying to go to sleep and I end up creeping myself out as a result). It’s the last movie that I have seen that has managed to actually scare me, and I know that I am not alone as I know a lot of other people that it terrified as well.

Trailer - The Grudge

The Grudge - video thumbnail

CAST

Yuya Ozeki, Takako Fuji, and Takashi Matsuyama, who play the Saeki family, all appeared in Ju-on in the same roles).

The film played in 3,348 theatres in the US before being released on DVD. It grossed $110,359,362.

THE GRUDGE can be streamed on Peacock.

THE GRUDGE 2

Director: Takashi Shimizu
Written by: Stephen Susco, Takashi Shimizu
Gellar's role: Karen Davis
With: Amber Tamblyn, Ariel Kebbel, Teresa Palmer
Length: 102 minutes
Genre: Horror
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Release date: 13 October 2006

Sarah Michelle Gellar - The Grudge 2
Gellar as Karen Davis in The Grudge 2

In Tokyo, a young woman (Tamblyn) is exposed to the same curse that afflicted her sister (Gellar) in the first film. Kayako, the ghost from the first film, is still holding her grudge. She really doesn't want anyone coming to her house. When three schoolgirls do that, she follows one of them all the way to Chicago.

Robert A Tuba reviewed the film for Christian Answers: "'The Grudge 2' continues the story as Karen’s sister, Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) is drafted by their mom to bring Karen back from Tokyo. Reluctantly, Aubrey takes the assignment. However, Karen dies shortly after Aubrey gets to Tokyo, and Aubrey decides to investigate the mysterious house that is the root of her sister’s death. With a journalist in tow, Aubrey vows to not return home until she finds out what caused her sister’s death...Screenwriter Stephen Susco, who used two interwoven stories to tell the first Grudge, now tries to use three interlaced stories in different time periods. Along with the tale of two sisters, the film also follows a couple of Tokyo schoolgirls who play a prank on another girl by locking her inside one of the house’s closets. All become “infected” with the curse. Finally, the film begins and ends with a story about a newly formed family that starts to notice and experience weird things in their apartment building when a stranger inhabits the apartment next door."

Trailer - The Grudge 2

trailer - The Grudge 2 - video thumbnail

THE GRUDGE 2 CAST

NURSES: Tomomi Hiraiwa, Yôko Chôsokabe, Kayoko Toda, and Shuri Matsuda

Misako Uno, who plays Miyuki, is a member of the pop group ATTACK ALL AROUND. Other members of the group are: Takahiro Nishijima, Naoya Urata, Mitsuhiro Hidaka, Shinjiro Atae, Shuta Sueyoshi, and Chiaki Ito.

The film played in 3,214 theatres in the US before being released on DVD. It grossed $39,143,839.

THE GRUDGE 2 can be streamed on Amazon Prime.

JU-ON

Ju-on movie poster

Director: Takashi Shimizu
Written by: Takashi Shimizu
With: Megumi Okina, Misaki Itô, and Misa Uehara
Length: 92 minutes
Genre: Horror
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Release date: 25 Jaunary 2003

Michael G McDunnah wrote for The Unaffiliated Critic: "One of the reasons I find Ju-On so creepy is that it really seems to have no other mission statement but to creep you out. The film is composed of six vignettes, each documenting one particular character's encounter with the ghosts—or yurei—who haunt a small house where a murder-suicide took place. The six stories are presented out of chronological order, and are only loosely linked: there is very little in the way of over-arching story. It's just concentrated scares: it's cinema as haunted funhouse, not as narrative."

This is quite different from the Westernized version with Gellar. In Ju-On, one is not simply dealing with ghosts. One is dealing with ghost-zombie hybrids. These beasties show up on security cameras (in fact they seem to be conscious of being recorded on them). They leave tiny toys lying around. And they manifest in several different ways. The contortionist is there, same as in the Gellar movie, but there is also a kind of vaguely humanoid smoke creature, and zombie-like full-on humanoid manifestations that are solid enough to break down doors.

Megumi Okina and Kayoko Shibata in JU-ON: The Grudge
Megumi Okina and Kayoko Shibata in JU-ON: The Grudge

One character looks up the stairs, sees a black cat that isn't supposed to be there, and then sees it snatched away by pale looking hands that weren't supposed to be there either. An unexplained curiosity is what makes the character display a lack of caution, and investigate things. In the Gellar film, her inquisitiveness was based on the notion that someone might have been imprisoned in a closet.

In the course of making JU-ON, a lot of what was in the screenplay was left out so that they could develop the characters a bit and at the same time keep the film to a reasonable length. When the film was a big hit, the omitted scenes became part of the sequel.

The smoke creature has bloodshot eyes. It is very rare in JU-ON to see any bright, vivid colours.

Richard Schieb of Moria explained that Ju-On "...is not a stand-alone film but is actually the third in a series (fourth if one counts the 1998 short film). The first was Ju-on (2000), which similarly told a series of connected episodes about a haunting centred around a house, and was followed by Ju-on 2 (2000), which continued in the same vein. Both were directed by Takashi Shimizu but intended for video rather than theatrical release and much lower budgeted. Both also feature the ghost boy and long-haired woman and follow the same basic idea of everybody who comes in contact with them being fatally haunted. (Prior to this, Takashi Shimizu delivered the basics of what would become the Ju-on films with the tv movie School Ghost Story G (1998) where was hired to direct two of the four segments). Ju-on: The Grudge is a big-screen reworking of the two video films."

There are a total of thirteen films in the series. Gellar appeared in the sixth and seventh films. The most recent in the series is "Sadako vs. Kayako", a 2016 feature in which The vengeful spirits of The Ring series and Grudge series do battle.

YouTube has both films from 2000: Ju On: The Curse 1 & 2 Combo Cut with English Subs

Trailer - JU-ON

Ju-On - video thumbnail

JU-ON Cast

JU-ON is available on Amazon Prime Video.

JU-ON, THE GRUDGE, and THE GRUDGE 2 all are available on both DVD and Blu-ray.