The Grudge (2020)
0.5/4
Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, John J. Hansen, Frankie Faison, Lin Shaye, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Jacki Weaver
Rated R for Disturbing Violence and Bloody Images, Terror and Some Language
I've never seen "The Grudge." Either the 2002 original or the inevitable remake two years later with 90's scream queen Sarah Michelle Gellar. So any comparisons to the original shall be left to other critics and internet trolls (or clickbait articles). I suppose the premise has promise. I mean, there's potential in watching a pissed off spirit terrorizing anyone dumb enough to venture into their domain. It's not exactly Shakespeare, but then again, neither was "Halloween."
A thought occurred to me while I was watching this movie. People have long been predicting the end of movie theaters due to the rise of cheap hi-def TVs and streaming content. Some, such as famed internet critic James Berardinelli, see it as not only an inevitability but an ongoing development. Honestly, it's really no surprise to me, considering the behavior of some audience members. I was running late, the people in line were moving at a crawl, the couple next to me brought their own snack counter and a bunch of kids were theater hopping. Security was talking to some other people and I thought they were going to kick them out, but no such luck. And people were talking throughout the whole movie. The longer the film went on, the louder it got. Apparently listening to that racket was included in the 12 bucks I spent on the ticket. Guess I didn't read the fine print.
I'm dawdling, I know. But I have a good reason. I'm avoiding reliving the experience of this movie, which is just awful. It's hard to imagine a movie released in theaters that is this incoherent, this boring and this godawful. I mean, at least "The Lighthouse" tried to do something original. I suppose that it could be argued that this movie does too, but its utter failure makes me wonder why anyone bothered to give it a theatrical bow. This isn't just direct-to-DVD fare. This is the crap you find on compilation discs for four bucks in the discount bin at Walmart.
Writer/director Nicolas Pesce attempts to do something interesting with this film. He tells this dreary story as if it were a matryoshka nesting doll. It's a story within a story within a story...you get the idea. Only there's no reason for it and he bungles the attempt. For most of the movie it feels like it was edited by a leaf shredder. It's almost completely incoherent. The film jumps backwards and forwards and back again. On and on it goes, and I quickly gave up and just stopped caring. This prevents the film from having any sort of dramatic arc, so I never knew where I was in the story. I kept wishing every character would just die so I could get out of the theater.
For a horror movie, the ghost/monster/spirit/whatever it is seems like an afterthought. This is really a trio of short melodramas that are occasionally interrupted by some grimy looking thing that scares the living hell out of anyone on screen before causing them to go berzerk and kill their loved ones. There are three: a pair of married realtors (Cho and Gilpin) who have a difficult choice in regards to their pregnancy, an old man (Faison) who wants a woman (Weaver) to allow his senile wife (Shaye) to die with dignity, and a cop (Riseborough) investigating a house that was the site of a murder/suicide and is the common thread between all three stories. Actually, these little dramas are so much more interesting than the garbage about the malevolent spirit. Take that stuff out and follow through on these stories and you might have had a movie.
But that's not what happens. The monster is forced into this mess and the actors, including a slumming Demian Bichir and an over-the-top Jackie Weaver, are forced to jump and scream and act like idiots. What a shame. For them and for me, because I wasted time and money on this.
Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, John J. Hansen, Frankie Faison, Lin Shaye, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Jacki Weaver
Rated R for Disturbing Violence and Bloody Images, Terror and Some Language
I've never seen "The Grudge." Either the 2002 original or the inevitable remake two years later with 90's scream queen Sarah Michelle Gellar. So any comparisons to the original shall be left to other critics and internet trolls (or clickbait articles). I suppose the premise has promise. I mean, there's potential in watching a pissed off spirit terrorizing anyone dumb enough to venture into their domain. It's not exactly Shakespeare, but then again, neither was "Halloween."
A thought occurred to me while I was watching this movie. People have long been predicting the end of movie theaters due to the rise of cheap hi-def TVs and streaming content. Some, such as famed internet critic James Berardinelli, see it as not only an inevitability but an ongoing development. Honestly, it's really no surprise to me, considering the behavior of some audience members. I was running late, the people in line were moving at a crawl, the couple next to me brought their own snack counter and a bunch of kids were theater hopping. Security was talking to some other people and I thought they were going to kick them out, but no such luck. And people were talking throughout the whole movie. The longer the film went on, the louder it got. Apparently listening to that racket was included in the 12 bucks I spent on the ticket. Guess I didn't read the fine print.
I'm dawdling, I know. But I have a good reason. I'm avoiding reliving the experience of this movie, which is just awful. It's hard to imagine a movie released in theaters that is this incoherent, this boring and this godawful. I mean, at least "The Lighthouse" tried to do something original. I suppose that it could be argued that this movie does too, but its utter failure makes me wonder why anyone bothered to give it a theatrical bow. This isn't just direct-to-DVD fare. This is the crap you find on compilation discs for four bucks in the discount bin at Walmart.
Writer/director Nicolas Pesce attempts to do something interesting with this film. He tells this dreary story as if it were a matryoshka nesting doll. It's a story within a story within a story...you get the idea. Only there's no reason for it and he bungles the attempt. For most of the movie it feels like it was edited by a leaf shredder. It's almost completely incoherent. The film jumps backwards and forwards and back again. On and on it goes, and I quickly gave up and just stopped caring. This prevents the film from having any sort of dramatic arc, so I never knew where I was in the story. I kept wishing every character would just die so I could get out of the theater.
For a horror movie, the ghost/monster/spirit/whatever it is seems like an afterthought. This is really a trio of short melodramas that are occasionally interrupted by some grimy looking thing that scares the living hell out of anyone on screen before causing them to go berzerk and kill their loved ones. There are three: a pair of married realtors (Cho and Gilpin) who have a difficult choice in regards to their pregnancy, an old man (Faison) who wants a woman (Weaver) to allow his senile wife (Shaye) to die with dignity, and a cop (Riseborough) investigating a house that was the site of a murder/suicide and is the common thread between all three stories. Actually, these little dramas are so much more interesting than the garbage about the malevolent spirit. Take that stuff out and follow through on these stories and you might have had a movie.
But that's not what happens. The monster is forced into this mess and the actors, including a slumming Demian Bichir and an over-the-top Jackie Weaver, are forced to jump and scream and act like idiots. What a shame. For them and for me, because I wasted time and money on this.
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