A Scary Movie... Or Something

Yup yup yup. I just watched The Grudge last night with Miss Piggy and Duke...

Bleh.

Okay, maybe that's not quite the right thing to say. The movie actually succeeded in what it was intended to do, which was scare the socks off the audience, but it didn't seem to do much else.

Here's the lowdown...

At the beginning of the movie, you are told that "when someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage, a curse is born..." That curse continues in the form of people it has killed, and once someone has seen "The Curse," they will be haunted by it until it finally catches and kills them. And that's if they aren't killed at their first meeting...

So basically, The Grudge follows several people who are unfortunate enough to enter, for one reason or another, the house which "The Curse" inhabits. It continues to follow them from then on, in their various (futile) attempts to flee from "The Curse."

Unfortunately, the movie's story and plot left a lot to be desired. At the beginning of the movie I was completely sure that the storyline would captivate me, but about halfway through, I was wondering what went wrong. The storyline seems to jump back and forth between past and present, but it never differentiates between the two, until the very end of the movie. This makes for a somewhat frustrating experience, though when everything is finally tied together, it starts to make more sense. It's not enough, however, to make up for my confusion throughout the rest of the movie.

As for scares, this movie seems to deliver, though not in the way I would have chosen. I prefer suspense a la Shyamalan rather than the scares this movie gives me. Suspense, with several "releases" in it to make you jump, seems to appeal to me a great deal, and I came into this movie expecting that. I was, however, disappointed in that area. Rather, this movie seemed to be almost all "release" and very little suspense; so many people running into the Curse and getting killed gets kind of mundane after an hour and a half.

This movie's scares rely far less on suspense and release, and more on visuals of the Curse, which are plenteous. Rather than the suspense created in Signs, where you catch nothing but an occasional glimpse of an alien until the very end, The Grudge tries to scare you by putting the strange, hideous Curse right in front of your face and daring you not to scream. This kind of scare is simply not as engaging for me, since it tends to take the focus off of the already confusing plot, and place focus on the brief but constant images of the Curse.

Another problem with the movie's scares is that they sneak up on you like a marching band. I could nearly do a countdown... "5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and SCARE!" Since the scares were so lacking in subtlety, I simply was not scared by this movie. I was repulsed by the Curse, but I wasn't scared. As a matter of fact, throughout this entire movie, which involved quite a few shocking images which jumped out at me (after ample obvious warnings), I never jumped once. I'm serious, Miss Piggy and Duke can attest to that; I never jumped and I never closed my eyes. I simply didn't find this movie to be amazingly scary. In-your-face shocking, but not scary.

My experience with this movie didn't seem to be the same as many other people's. The rest of the theatre was filled with shrieks; every time something scary happened, I could feel the theatre jumping around me. Much to my comrades' disdain (and mine as well), I simply wasn't affected by the movie's horror. And, since the movie didn't scare me sufficiently, but it did manage to take my attention off of the plot, I simply didn't find this movie to be of very high quality.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I feel compelled to give The Grudge a 6. Though I wasn't particularly impressed by it, everyone else seemed to be. Though the scares didn't particularly appeal to me, most of the other people in the theatre seemed to find them to be sufficient (and beyond). Therefore, I can't rate the movie too low.

Also, kudos to The Grudge for almost completely staying away from sex and foul language. That alone is worth a couple of points.

So in summary, the movie didn't scare me, but it scared many other people. The scares were of the in-your-face shocking type, but not too startling or surprising type. I didn't like the plot, and not many other people seem to. This may be due to the fact that the scares keep you from paying attention to the plot, or it may also be due to the fact that the movie skips around from past to present without telling you which is which. It's a good plot tool, but it shouldn't be used in conjunction with the constant shocking images.

Regardless, the movie doesn't (to my knowledge) make any claims to being some work of genius in regards to the storyline. It instead simply seems to claim to be scary, and depending on the kind of "scary" that you like. So, if you think you can deal with the disturbing images that gave this movie a PG-13 rating, then by all means, give it a try. It deals with a curse from Japanese folklore, so if that is off-putting to you, be sure to take that into consideration.

With a 6 out of 10, this is a movie to see, if you are in the mood. But it's not a movie to buy. My guess is that it will be quickly forgotten.