I realized when going back to the few movies I DID manage to see in theaters in 2020, I saw that I had seen 'The Grudge' back in January...and then I re-watched about five minutes of it again and remembered why I forgot about it. But it did make me think of when I would go back and check out the previous entries before tackling the newest sequel or remake so better late than never I suppose. I'm going to be covering both the 2002 Japanese original (which is actually a sequel to 'The Curse' which never got adapted in the US) and it's 2004 US remake. Both films are directed by Takashi Shimizu and both were huge hits at the time during a big boom for the sub-genre known as J-Horror after the success of 'Ring' and it's American counterpart as few years earlier. But does being directed by the same person mean the same quality?
The premise is similar for both films and overall it does seem like many scenes or lines of dialogue are exact so there's little change in that department. The story involves a cursed home where the ghost of a murdered wife and her child haunt and eventually kill anyone who enters the home, or has contact with anyone who has entered. How this premise is shown is where the two films begin to take different courses. The remake makes the common horror mistake of explaining too much with exposition rather than slowly revealing information like the original which tends to spread out it's mythology throughout. While this is a common problem with western horror in general, I feel that 'The Grudge' makes this mistake stick out all the more because the filmmakers chose to keep the location in Japan, but having 99% of the cast be westerners.
The debate of whitewashing in Hollywood has been a hot topic for many years now, and in this case I see the problem. Changing the venue to the appropriate place can drastically make a difference when remaking a foreign product for another country. This was why 2002's 'The Ring' was a bigger success because it took the original premise of a video tape that haunts you and changed it to Seattle to make the setting more fitting. 'The Grudge' just feels very unrealistic that so many caucasian people would be living in the country all near this house, especially when you are aware of the country's strict immigration policies. It takes you out of the movie for myself and many others and it feels more than a bit insulting to have Sarah Michelle Gellar patronizing the audience by explaining Japanese culture as mysterious and weird like this is the 1800's.
What the remake does do well is recreating the original's iconic scares well without adding any gore or jump scare nonsense. It also manages to take some scenes from other films in the series such as 'Ju-On: Curse' and even though having the mostly white cast isn't ideal they all perform well. Really, going back over these two films it was harder than I thought to pick out precise elements that made one superior to the other but really what it comes down to is this: They are so similar that it just ultimately makes the 2004 remake pointless. It does nothing to stand out as it's own movie like with 'The Ring' it's more or less the exact same film so there's really no reason to see it over the Japanese version unless you're really that much against subtitles. However at that point why would 'The Grudge' even interest you? Takashi Shimizu got very lucky and was given a once in a lifetime chance for a foreign director to make it in Hollywood and it's hard to blame him for taking it. It's just a shame it didn't turn out to be such a fairy tale ending for him with a pointless remake, a terrible original sequel, and two sequels without his involvement. Thankfully, his work in Japan such as 'Marebito' were worthy redeemers.
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