Feb 25 2009
THE GRUDGE 3
He’s back! And be brought the chick from Saw!
PLOT
The movie opens with a boy in a mental hospital telling his doctor (played by Shawnee Smith) about the curse and how she’s coming for him. She tells him he’ll be fine, sends him to bed and leaves, only to get a call later that night that something weird is going on. She comes back to find him twisted in dozens of ways and obviously dead. The film then shifts to Rose, a little girl who’s eagerly waiting for her sister Lisa, who’s off with her boyfriend. The couple’s about to leave town so they’re humping like bunnies. Their brother Max is the super and I’m assuming that this is supposed to be the apartment building from the last movie. Rose also has an “imaginary” friend, a little boy who she leaves toys for in the hallway. We also get No’oko who’s moving from Japan to the building because she knows exactly what’s going on. Of course people start dying and the movie focuses on how to end the curse.
TRIVIA
Takashi Shiizu, who directed the Japanese and American versions of The Grudge acted as producer on this movie, though he was given the option to direct.
The ghosts of both the boy and the woman were played by different actors for the first time. s
THOUGHTS
Surprisingly enough The Grudge 3 wasn’t a horrible movie, at least not as bad as I was expecting. They actually established continuity between the movies and in a way that made sense, which you don’t often find in horror movies, especially straight to DVD sequels. I liked this one far better than the second one (which probably isn’t saying much) and I ended up getting drawn into the movie, wanting to know what was going to happen and hoping that the people I liked survived.
The one thing I didn’t like was that they tried to establish how the curse started, putting the blame on one of the Japanese characters and kind of taking some of the blame off the husband who murdered her in cold blood. Still it was a fairly good movie and I’m surprised they didn’t at least try to release it in the theaters, the production values were better than most straight to DVD horror movies. Plus they referenced the idea of ju-on, the name of the original movies, which is something they’ve never done before. When it comes out, give it a try.
I just rented and saw this movie. I felt that the moment the first shot of the movie was seen, it was obvious that this was a direct-to-DVD, differently made movie. I was so disappointed that Takashi did not do this one (I felt he would have taken and run with this story). I also imagined how certain scenes could have been better (namely the first shot; it could have had dialogue first before any visual, to set the mood. I don’t know, I think of stuff like that). I did think that it had great ideas like the unusual goings-on in the homes. Plus, I loved the actress that played Naoko as I thought she had a beautiful presence and liked her the best (so you could guess how I felt when. . . you know).
The one major insult of this movie though; I hated that they used quite a few of other Japanese actors (plus Naoko probably wasn’t even home-grown in Japanese given her seemingly phony accent) to play the ones who didn’t do this flick as if the American producers thought, “They’re Asian; no one will tell them apart.” but they were noticeably different. Altogether, I did like the film.
You can probably tell that I like to analyze films too.
God bless, Jen.
cjs.
Thanks for the comments! I still think it was better than the second movie, but you’re right, it was pretty straight to DVD in its approach.