? A sequel to a
remake that is, however, not a remake of the Japanese Grudge 2, though
it is nonetheless again directed by and written by the auteur of both versions
of The Grudge, Takashi Shimizu. Got that? The important thing is that
the creepy dead woman and child are back. This time they’ve got they’re sights
on Amber Tamblyn, who plays the sister of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character
from the first film. She’s come to Tokyo to figure out what Sis is doing in the
hospital, but it turns out that the ghosts are also doing some traveling. No
longer confined to an old house, they’re also targeting some girls at the
nearby English-language school and a family in a Chicago tenement.
+ Well, no doubt
about it, the dead people are creepy. Decreasingly scary, but creepy.
- If the lengthy
description above makes it sound like the plot’s complicated, fear not. You
won’t fear much, actually, because if you’ve seen the first movie, you’ve seen
all there is to fear. Other than the new characters (Gellar’s being just about
the only holdover among the living ones) and the new settings, there is
precious little to carry the story forward. Over and over, someone is looking
at something that suddenly turns into a dead person, sometimes scaring them,
sometimes killing them. Tamblyn finally finds the woman who can explain
everything, and the woman says, in essence, sorry, you’re screwed. Indeed.
= *1/2 Even fans of
the original are likely to echo the befuddled mutterings I heard around me when
I exited the theater. I think they were confused by the plot, thinking that
there would be one.
viewed 10/14/06 at Moorestown
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