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# Hold ‘Grudge’ against makers of silly scarefest
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/hold-grudge-against-makers-of-silly-scarefest/
- Published: 2004-10-22T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:19:38.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Review*

“The Grudge” is the latest Americanized version of a commercially successful, albeit humdrum Japanese horror flick (with many more to come over the next two years), but unlike “The Ring,” this remake is silly rather than chilling. Takashi Shimuzi, who wrote and directed the original “Ju-on: The Grudge,” also helms this one (with Sam Raimi of the “Spider-man” and “Evil Dead” franchises producing), but the translation is rough. Though set in Japan, the principal characters are American, a bit of cultural displacement that quickly becomes a distraction. As one dumb Anglo after another marches into a poltergeist-infested abode, one can’t help but wonder how many of them have to die before somebody figures out that poking around shadowy haunted houses in a strange land ain’t such a good idea.

As Karen, the pretty exchange student who gets spooked, Sarah Michelle Gellar appears frightened throughout, especially when delivering such soporific lines as “The whole time, I was in that house, I felt something was wrong.” Really? What was your first clue, the ghoulish blue-skinned little boy locked in a closet, or the screeching wraith in the bedroom?

Apparently, something so bad happened to the kid and his mom that their spirits are hell-bent on vengeance. The film will leave you wondering why you’re in there … the theater, that is. It’s hard to survive Affleck’s latest flop

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 22, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/102204.pdf?ref=smdp.com)