The Grudge 2: Movie & DVD Review (2006)

(Originally published 2006)

The horror movie, "The Grudge 2," begins with the same heady news that flashed upon the screen at the start of its equally dumb, 2004 predecessor, "The Grudge": "When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage, a curse is left behind. Those who encounter it die, and a new curse is born."

Let's hope they're wrong. Otherwise, should some disgruntled viewer kick the can after seeing this beauty, curses will descend upon cineplexes everywhere.

This screwy, empty movie is a continuation of a story that began in the low-budget, 2003 Japanese horror film "Ju-On: The Grudge," itself a remake, of sorts, of 2000's "Ju-On: The Curse" and 2003's "Ju-On: The Curse 2."

All were such hits in Japan, producer and fan Sam Raimi ("The Evil Dead," "Spider-Man," "Spider-Man 2") commissioned the series' director, Takashi Shimizu, to helm an American version of "The Grudge." Since the box office was there to support a sequel, Shimizu got the nod to direct "The Grudge 2."

Too bad so much is lost in translation. As written by Shimizu and Stephen Susco, "The Grudge 2" is a hot mess, a movie that's so bad, it generates a train wreck of confusion onscreen, with sense and logic tied to the tracks and repeatedly severed.

In brief, the idiot plot: Aubrey Davis (Amber Tamblyn) is ordered by her estranged, bed-ridden mother (Joanna Cassidy, doing her B-movie best to recall a faded Karen Black) to go to Tokyo to retrieve Aubrey's older sister, Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who now is in the hospital after nearly being undone by events in the last movie.

For reasons that won't be revealed here, retrieving Karen proves a difficult to do, though Aubrey's efforts do allow the film to set up one of its endless subplots--she meets journalist Eason (Edison Chen), who presumably is here to help her sort out the ensuing nonsense. Good luck to Eason. Meanwhile, the restless script pulls focus away from them to concentrate on others affected by the curse--several schoolgirls in Tokyo who are stricken by it, and also a family in Chicago (yes, this curse travels).

For jolts, the movie offers nothing new--zip--just the same old bluish ghosts of the murdered mother and son team, Kayako (Takako Fuji) and Toshio (Oga Tanaka), who pop up so predictably, they underscore the movie's total lack of imagination and banality.

These days, spinach is scarier than anything that unfolds in "The Grudge 2." The film is such a waste, it could have benefited from the inspired and truthful title found in the recent "Jackass" movie. "The Grudge Number Two" comes closer to the mark.

Grade: D-