THE GRUDGE (2020)

[indianasmith]

I remember when the original THE GRUDGE came out, back around 2005 or so.  I was pumped because I loved THE RING so much, and this was touted as a movie that was going to be just as scary - and the trailers made it look terrifying enough!  But then I was very disappointed when I saw it, because while the visuals were indeed scary, the plot was just a meatloaf of mediocrity.
So last night I saw that the 2020 remake was coming on cable, and I set it to record.  Tonight I sat down and watched it. Well, here's my take:  It has a much better plot and more sympathetic characters than the first one; it does have too many jump scares but they are at least effective jump scares; and last of all, the narrative does hold together right up to the end.  In fact, I would give this one five stars if not for the ending.  I won't give any spoilers except to say that I thought it was cheap and detracted from the story.  But overall, I found this to be a much more spooky and cohesive story than the original.
4/5

[zelmo73]

Is it better than Ju-On (2002)? That's the original Japanese movie that The Grudge (2004) is based off of. I thought that Ju-On (2002) was much scarier than The Grudge (2004) because there were less jump scares and the lower budget special effects and film quality made it look more genuine than the remake. That, and I could never take Sarah Michelle Gellar seriously in anything that she's ever been in. These types of horror movies always seem better when you don't recognize the actors, and I don't keep up with my Japanese actors, which is probably the other reason why I enjoyed the original movie much better than the remake.

[indianasmith]

I don't remember if I ever saw JU-ON.