Mad House: "The Grudge" dreary and empty with gore but poor storytelling, little dread, and a wasted cast

The Grudge (2020)

93 min.

Release Date: January 3, 2020 (Wide)

If any auspicious horror auteur had the clout and a chance to bring a grimmer, more unforgiving vision to a Japanese horror property like “The Grudge,” it should have been writer-director Nicolas Pesce (see 2016’s “The Eyes of My Mother” and 2019’s “Piercing”). In his reboot, “The Grudge”—a half-sequel, half-remake of the 2004 Sarah Michelle Gellar-headliner, itself a remake of 2002’s “Ju-on: The Grudge”—contains little of Pesce’s stylistic precision and suggestion that it’s a shame most of it comes across more plodding than hair-raising. Only so many excuses can be made if the film was actually a victim of probable post-production tinkering, but alas, the finished product that made its way to the screen is all one has to go by, and it's still just another business-as-usual reheat of the once-popular source material. If Pesce does anything frightening, he somehow managed to amass and then waste so many talented actors who commit and take "The Grudge" as seriously as a heavy Oscar-nominated drama.

From the Tokyo-set opening, this redux of “The Grudge” proves to bear the vaguest continuity to the American remake, being initially set in 2004, giving a glimpse of the same exact Murder House, and having someone utter a familiar character name. This time, the “patient zero” is caregiver Fiona Landers (Tara Westwood), who leaves Japan in a hurry to return home to Cross River, Pennsylvania, but unknowingly brings the virus-like curse to kill her and her family. Two years later, in 2006, the Landers’ home on 44 Reyburn Drive remains haunted by rancorous spirits. Meanwhile, recently widowed Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) tries to move on with her young son, until she is partnered up with the grizzled Detective Goodman (Demián Bichir) to investigate a crime scene involving a corpse in a car in the woods that might be connected to Goodman’s previous case.

Like the previous incarnations, the film is told in nonlinear fashion, cutting between multiple plot threads taking place at different times. On the 2004 timeline, real-estate couple Peter (John Cho) and Nina Spencer (Betty Gilpin) are struggling with the news that their firstborn baby will be plagued by a rare genetic disorder before Peter tries selling the haunted house. And then, in 2005, married couple William (Frankie Faison) and the mentally not-there Faith Matheson (Lin Shaye) have moved into the house, with a visit from euthanasia consultant Lorna Moody (Jacki Weaver), only to face the ghost’s never-ending wrath. Even as the threads inevitably come together, the structure is erratically edited and renders the storytelling disjointed this time around. There’s also a fairly insulting amount of hand-holding, flashing back to scenes that the viewer has already seen and should remember if he or she is paying attention. Unfortunately, there isn't much of a mystery to solve.

2020’s “The Grudge” is clearly aiming for a darker, edgier, more character-focused approach. The tone is certainly determined to be as grim and glum as ever, and visually, there's a smothering, almost-jaundiced monotony to the doom and gloom. With the R-rating, there is more explicit gore—fingers get chopped like carrots and someone plummets to their splattery death in a stairwell—but far less terror and genuine creepiness. As if once intended to be a deliberate, contemplative slow-burn building dread, the film is just a dreary and lifeless downer. In spite of The Newton Brothers’ often effectively moody score, there are few, if any, unnerving set-pieces, just sudden jolts of the generic, sped-up variety as if they were tacked on at the last minute to prevent audiences from micro-napping. Even the moment of a corpsy hand rubbing through showered hair is perfunctory and treated like a throwaway homage.

The high-profile cast almost enhances the material, but none of the actors have much to sink their teeth into with thankless, developmentally slim parts. Playing more like tragic vessels than lived-in people, the characters that weave in and fatally out of the messy narrative tapestry are all broken and doomed without any emotional connection. Andrea Riseborough (2018’s “Mandy”) leads the way in emotionally shattered mode as Detective Muldoon—she never gets a first name—and the actress is certainly trying to make something compelling. Everyone else is just overqualified for what little they are given to play, particularly the ever-welcome Lin Shaye (2018's "Insidious: The Last Key"), who isn’t on screen long enough but is at least game to create an unsettling presence as Mrs. Matheson. Underwhelming at best, and pointless and empty at worst, “The Grudge” marks the end of the line for the croaking, stringy-haired specters who just need to learn to stop holding violent grudges.

Grade: C -