Tour a Japanese haunted house with “The Grudge”

By Michael Boylan

Have you been to a haunted house yet this Halloween season? And no, Monster Plantation at Six Flags doesn’t count. If you haven’t made the obligatory stroll through dark hallways while teenagers in masks and makeup jump out at you with power tools, don’t bother. Go and see “The Grudge” instead. It’s cheaper and there will be far less of a line.

“The Grudge,” based on the Japanese thriller, “Ju-On,” is basicallly a haunted house movie. In fact, the same director is on board and they use the same house and the same creepy kid and young woman. That’s a plus, believe me. The plot focuses on this house and a tragedy that occurred there several years ago. Since then, everyone who has gone into the house has been haunted by spirits, had the bejeezus scared out of them and many, if not all, have ended up dead.

Cue the creepy music.

This is where Sarah Michelle Gellar comes in. She plays Karen, a young woman who is living in Japan with her boyfriend/husband (?) and is studying sociology. She has been working part time at a care center and she finally gets to go out on her first job. The job involves taking care of a near catatonic lady named Emma because, darn it, her usual caretaker, Yoko, hasn’t been heard from since yesterday when she went to the same house. Bad things start happening after Karen enters the house and then the film jumps around in time, shedding light on other aspects of the story.

While the plot is very minimal, the film is very satisfying. Director Takashi Shimizu knows how to ratchet up the intensity and provide tons of thrills and chills. Much like walking through a haunted house, you know that something will jump out at you soon but you still jump when it happens. Shimizu blends together interesting visuals with a terrific use of the score and sounds in general. “The Grudge” isn’t necessarily a quiet movie but it also isn’t a symphony of screams and current pop hits. Shimizu seems to know that noises breaking the silence are often scarier than young co-eds screaming for their lives as they run away.

Which brings me to Gellar. I was a huge “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fan and I was very impressed with her performance in this film. In “The Grudge,” Gellar is in control for much of the film, but she isn’t a heroine out to save the day. She is a quiet person in a foreign country that wants to help people and she can’t help but get caught up in a mystery, even though it terrifies her at every turn. The rest of the cast gave solid performances as well but aside from the little boy and the woman from the original, no one else really stood out. This may have helped the film because, unlike other horror movies with big name casts, you never know who will make it in this film or how they will figure in to the story.

In Japan, Shimizu has made several Ju-on films since 2000, so he knows the material and he knows what has been effective with Japanese audiences. As other J-Horror (Japanese Horror, it is becoming it’s own genre) directors have found, American audiences respond the same way. I urge you to take in “The Grudge” this weekend and if you like it, rent “The Eye,” the original “Ju-On,” or “Pulse.”

Happy Halloween!

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