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I saw an ad in the paper today for The Grudge. Atop the teasing picture of a horrifying looking Chinese girl half masked by her own matted hair, there stood a solitary critic's quote (can't remember the critic's name). "If you loved The Ring, you'll love The Grudge!" raved the lone blurb. I can only assume that this critic liked The Grudge, something which in and of itself I cannot understand. Yet although The Grudge did little but annoy me, I completely sympathize with that quote. Anyone who loved The Ring will likely give equal praise to this film-because The Grudge is essentially the exact same movie.

The similarities start with their production histories. Both The Ring and The Grudge are remakes of popular Japanese horror films (Ringu and Ju-On respectively) and, if I may be so bold, both remakes aren't anywhere near the quality of the originals. Like any other American remake of a foreign film, much of Ringu and Ju-On's spine-tingling terror gets lost in translation. To see atmospheric, arrestingly claustrophobic Japanese filmmaking drown beneath the America poisons of cheap thrills, bad screenwriting and Sarah Michelle Gellar is depressing enough, but when it happens twice in two years, it's damn near tragic. I suppose after making enough of our own bad movies, we Americans feel the need to ruin those of other countries. Share the love, so to speak.

Well, we've succeed twice now, and two perfectly good horror film shave been diced up, translated and sewn back together around two pretty blonde girls. In The Ring, Naomi Watts led the charge as a spooky video tape killed people. The Grudge is about a spooky house that kills people, but this time it doesn't have Naomi Watts (she's too busy making good movies like 21 Grams and I Heart Huckabees). Instead we have to settle for Sarah Michelle Gellar, a veteran bad horror movies, who aptly plays the cliched stupid white girl whom we all hate because she investigates spooky killer houses without ever thinking it through. She has no idea that the spooky house where she works as a nurse is in fact cursed by the memory of a brutal double murder committed there years ago. Even when people who visit the house start disappearing, Gellar doesn't figure it out. She just sits there while a half dozen complete idiots are lured by evil spirits into the house and killed off. Hasn't she ever seen a horror movie before? Can't she see the pattern-the creaky staircase, the ominous hallways, the dark attic, or even the creepy little Japanese boy who meows like a cat at his victims? Isn't that something of a red flag? Just once I'd like to hear a horror film protagonist say, "Hey, I remember this from Halloween... I better get the hell outta here!"

No one says that in The Grudge. No one has time to. The Grudge is scare-heavy horror film, where little time is devoted to actual exposition and character development. With so many frightening moments dominating the running length (many of which are actually quite scary), characters never take shape and gaping plot holes leave the viewer thoroughly confused. The worst part is that even though some of the initial scares work, all the subsequent "boo" moments become tediously repetitive. At least five or six scenes involve some fool peering into the haunted attic late at night, and rightly deserving their immediate death. Like The Ring, The Grudge's construction is a constant rehashing of moods and visuals, the same scare repeated ad nauseum. Takashi Shimizu, who directed this film and Ju-On, has replaced the smooth progression of his original film with this clunky and confusing broken record of a film.

There is a sequel to The Ring on the horizon (which I am not anticipating), and if the synchronized pattern of these two films holds true, The Grudge 2 should follow soon after. If that happens, then two more worthy horror franchises will be flattened by the relentless steamroller of Hollywood greed, and the sad history of American remakes will repeat itself once more. not that I hold a grudge or anything...

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