IN: Review: The script was VERY weak w/o enough character arcs to make you care one bit about the characters or what happens to them. The script is way too talky and not enough gore or action to even call it slow paced. The story gets to the point that you just want everyone to shut up and die as quickly as possible so you don't have to listen to them talk this very muted, stiff dialogue. On a technical note, the music mix is way to high and makes it hard to understand what is being said most times. Then again, this could be called a blessing. Overall, this same story could have better been told in a short film w/ a running time under 30 minutes. The obvious "in your face" homages to Sam Raimi and "Evil Dead" would have been good had they been more subtle, but here they seem more like a bald faced rip off. C'mon, this kind of 35mm budget and THIS is the best that could be done? Still, the cinematography, lighting design and shots were very well done indeed.
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OUT: negative

IN: Review: I thought that this movies was a letdown I expected it to be so much better than it was. I am so glad I didn't pay to see this movie and that I didn't sit in a movie theater for this one. Where to begin on this movie, the acting in this movie was average, the humor was terrible and just the overall storyline of this movie wasn't special. I thought that this movie was suppose to be great, but it wasn't more than a cheesy waste of time. I think that the acting in this movie was terrible no of the actors in this movie had chemistry, it just wasn't there. I think that if maybe we had a different actor play Kirk than Jay Baruchel it might have been better but the entire time I watched this movie he looked high and I didn't get the feeling that he wasn't acting in this movie. Now, Alice Eve did a great job as an actress but, there was no chemistry between her and Jay. All the actors in this movie were no names and had very little affect in this movie. The humor in this movie was not funny at all, there were a few one liners in this movie that were OK but nothing worth saying to your friends that they would understand. I think that Jim Field Smith had a hard time with this because he couldn't decide if he wanted a romance or a comedy. I honestly think he needs to stick with the Burger King commercials. I think that this movie could have been better if the writers would have gone to a different director. The storyline of this movie is just like every other hot girl just OK guy love storyboring I think that it would have been better if it had more originality, but what a letdown nothing. I honesty would not recommend anyone go see this movie. I think that you would have more entertainment at the dentist than at this movie. So save yourself the agony and just don't see it.
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OUT: negative

IN: Review: Takashi Shimizu had a great opportunity with a remake of his original film Ju-On The Grudge. While I haven't seen that film, I would have to wager that there's more imagination and originality (or some rip-off originality, in other words skill with known tropes of the Japanese ghost movie) than in his own directed remake. Maybe the script was written to somehow have some kind of warped appeal, or I would guess accessibility, for an American audience. What starts off with some potential - the hint of something very screwed up going on with Bill Pullman's sudden movement - just goes into a total jumble. And as a horror movie? Gimme a break.

Tension could have been built on the situation - a nurse going to take care of a disturbed woman in a house that is haunted - but he undercuts everything he wants to get his audience to feel. Scares? How's about some music timed just so you know when exactly to expect something. A black cat? Yeah, why not just make the ghost-boy thing sound like a cat for creepiness which, in effect, is only creepy if you want cats. Plot? Why not just shuffle between past and present without any semblance of an actual flow of how a story could be told (meaning, while the flashbacks are inserted and are meant to be organic with the story overall, they aren't), or for that matter have us care about ANYONE in the cast.

By the time the characters, or those that are there for exposition, get around to telling us what is going on or whatever, there's little point to care. The film-making is shoddy (i.e. the 180 degree rule is broken many times over and not in a forgivable or intriguing way), and the performances are wooden even when looking frightened or shocked (Gellar especially is disappointing, but Pullman, who shows up later after his first scene, is sorely miscast). Even when Shimizu tries for some average old "Boo" scares, like when the woman is in the office building and chased by the Grudge ghost, it's still silly. Just watch when she's going on that elevator and the ghost is in the background of shots. Either you'll go with it, and if so more power to you, or you'll laugh hysterically at the results. Count me in the latter.

I'm not totally sure where this project went wrong - was it Shimizu having to retool it for the studios, or him not giving enough leeway with his revamp of his vision? Or maybe Raimi had some say in it and made things more confusing and/or dull than they would be with someone else. The Grudge gives us a lot of information that doesn't make sense or at the least give us some horror-fodder to chew on. It's cineplex trash of a sad order.
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OUT:
negative