An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.
Director:
Takashi Shimizu
Stars:
Sarah Michelle Gellar,
Jason Behr,
Clea DuVall
Reiko takes Yoichi into hiding when her son begins to display frightening powers. Meanwhile, Mai Takano and the authorities begin a desperate search for them, as the mysterious Ring curse spreads...
Three interwoven stories about a terrible curse. A young woman encounters a malevolent supernatural force while searching for her missing sister in Tokyo; a mean high school prank goes horribly wrong; a woman with a deadly secret moves into a Chicago apartment building.
A blind girl gets a cornea transplant so that she would be able to see again. However, she got more than what she bargained for when she realized she could even see ghosts.
Directors:
Danny Pang,
Oxide Chun Pang
Stars:
Angelica Lee,
Chutcha Rujinanon,
Lawrence Chou
A young photographer and his girlfriend discover mysterious shadows in their photographs after a tragic accident. They soon learn that you can not escape your past.
In this prequel to Ring, a young Sadako becomes an actress in hopes of escaping her troubled past. But strange visions and terrifying powers begin to manifest...
In Japan, when the volunteer social assistant Rika Nishina is assigned to visit a family, she is cursed and chased by two revengeful fiends: Kayako, a woman brutally murdered by her husband and her son Toshio. Each person that lives in or visits the haunted house is murdered or disappears.Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This film is the third installment of the Ju-on series. The film was preceded by two low budget films from 2000 (Ju-on (2000) and Ju-on 2 (2000)), whose storylines are continued in this sequel. See more »
Goofs
(at around 1h 18 mins) When Rika wakes up in bed to a room full of yowling black cats, several of the cats are obviously statues. Some of them are even clearly replicas of the same statue. See more »
With obvious homages to Ring, The Grudge could be accused of an element of plagiarism. That doesn't, however, detract from the fact it's a pretty decent picture, and one of the better Tartan Asia Extreme movies.
First things first - I *love* Ring, and of course, I mean the Japanese original. That film is by far and away the greatest horror flick ever devised and goes above and beyond what I ever expected a movie to do. However, it also instigated a ready conveyor belt of substandard imitators from the same shores ready to cash in on this unique success. Dire nonsense like the hollow Dark Water, the dull and over stylised Eye, the truly pitiful Phone and the slightly bizarre Audition haven't truly come close to the level of Ring.
Now, while Grudge isn't quite up there with the very best horror films, as far as these Asian efforts go, it's definitely one of the more effective selections.
Megumi Okina is Rika, a volunteer homehelper. On being assigned to a family whose regular assistant is temporarily unavailable, she encounters the mother of the family who seems unresponsive. However, after a disturbing incident at the family home, Rika finds herself seemingly haunted by some kind of entity and everyone who gets involved in the case seems to endure the same trauma.
It's a slightly convoluted story to explain, but it works pretty well on screen. As usual the Japanese acting is generally pretty bland, but a few loud screams certainly add colour.
The main 'bad guy' seems to be some type of ghostly being, and while it doesn't utterly terrify, it definitely brings a few chills. The only real problem is we see too much of it, and not enough is left to our imagination ala Ring. This takes away a certain air mystery and fear. Moreover, the fact the entity resembles the symbolic Japanese girl with long black hair we've come to expect in the likes of Ring and Dark Water slightly detracts from notions of originality.
However, this is redeemed by some pretty effective direction and camera-work, which aid to promote certain wrongness about what is going on.
Perhaps a few aspects don't altogether make complete sense, but there's enough style here to paper over such cracks.
Movies like this do go to show that when it comes to horror, the Far East have a handle over the Western world.
It's by no means the most brilliant horror I've ever seen, but it's definitely not bad and if you're up for a chill or 2, you could do far worse.
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With obvious homages to Ring, The Grudge could be accused of an element of plagiarism. That doesn't, however, detract from the fact it's a pretty decent picture, and one of the better Tartan Asia Extreme movies.
First things first - I *love* Ring, and of course, I mean the Japanese original. That film is by far and away the greatest horror flick ever devised and goes above and beyond what I ever expected a movie to do. However, it also instigated a ready conveyor belt of substandard imitators from the same shores ready to cash in on this unique success. Dire nonsense like the hollow Dark Water, the dull and over stylised Eye, the truly pitiful Phone and the slightly bizarre Audition haven't truly come close to the level of Ring.
Now, while Grudge isn't quite up there with the very best horror films, as far as these Asian efforts go, it's definitely one of the more effective selections.
Megumi Okina is Rika, a volunteer homehelper. On being assigned to a family whose regular assistant is temporarily unavailable, she encounters the mother of the family who seems unresponsive. However, after a disturbing incident at the family home, Rika finds herself seemingly haunted by some kind of entity and everyone who gets involved in the case seems to endure the same trauma.
It's a slightly convoluted story to explain, but it works pretty well on screen. As usual the Japanese acting is generally pretty bland, but a few loud screams certainly add colour.
The main 'bad guy' seems to be some type of ghostly being, and while it doesn't utterly terrify, it definitely brings a few chills. The only real problem is we see too much of it, and not enough is left to our imagination ala Ring. This takes away a certain air mystery and fear. Moreover, the fact the entity resembles the symbolic Japanese girl with long black hair we've come to expect in the likes of Ring and Dark Water slightly detracts from notions of originality.
However, this is redeemed by some pretty effective direction and camera-work, which aid to promote certain wrongness about what is going on.
Perhaps a few aspects don't altogether make complete sense, but there's enough style here to paper over such cracks.
Movies like this do go to show that when it comes to horror, the Far East have a handle over the Western world.
It's by no means the most brilliant horror I've ever seen, but it's definitely not bad and if you're up for a chill or 2, you could do far worse.