"They're coming for me!"
This isn't the Hollywood remake with Sarah Michelle Gellar- it's the Japanese original, the one Sam Raimi raved about. So is it any good? Well, yes, but it's a good film, not a great one, where some fantastic horror set pieces and very good direction save what is an over-convoluted narrative with too many characters.
Films in multiple acts based on different characters can work, and work well; see the entire career of Quentin Tarantino, the master of making a non-linear narrative comprehensible to the average person. But a narrative horror film, based on the ramping up of tension and ever-increasing shocks, in which the supernatural horror is held back but shown in terrifying glimpses? Here, where such a narrative is technically done very well indeed, the chosen narrative style serves to destroy the overall effect of what are truly superb individual horror set pieces.
That doesn't take away from the effectiveness of those set pieces, though, and it's the direction that truly makes this film shine. A very modern horror, eschewing all sense of the Gothic for modern white interiors and brutalist exteriors has a very different and very effective look. Worth a go but perhaps, in spite of some technical excellence, not quite as good as its reputation.
Welcome to my blog! I do reviews of Doctor Who from 1963 to present, plus spin-offs. As well as this I do non-Doctor Who related reviews of The Prisoner, The Walking Dead, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, Blake's 7, The Crown, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Sherlock, Firefly, Batman and rather a lot more. There also be reviews of more than 600 films and counting. Oh, and whatever I happen to be reading, or listening to. And Marvel comics in order from 1961 onwards.
Sunday, 8 April 2018
The Grudge (2002)
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