The Grudge 2

Cast: Sarah Michelle Geller, Amber Tamblyn, Arielle Kebbel, Takako Fuji, Edison Chen, Sarah Roemer and Matthew Knight.

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Release Date: 2006

Running Time: 1hr 42 minutes

Genre: Horror

Rating: PG-13

Synopsis:

In the second instalment to "The Grudge", we see three interwove stories about a terrible curse, a young woman arriving in Japan encounters a supernatural being whilst searching for her missing sister. 

Takashi Shimizu dared to make a sequel! So here we are with the second installment to "The Grudge" series. Three teenage girls from an International school in Tokyo find their way into the same house that caused Karen Davis (Geller) so much grief. After a prank that goes horribly wrong the girls soon learn that it is a bit more then a haunted house. Karen Davis finds herself in hospital after reportedly trying to set fire to the house. I really like the atmosphere that surrounds this film compared to the first one. There is a lot more suspense. The storyline is far better too and explains elements from the first movie. However there were moments in this movie that didn't make sense, I believe they were essentially flash backs? As a member of the audience it would have been nice to have had that explained as to not cause any confusion later on in the movie.

Teresa Palmer has her ups and downs when it comes to acting, she was absolutely incredible in "Hacksaw Ridge" but her performance in this was just mediocre. Did she take her character from "I am Number Four" and dump it into a Japanese horror movie? It's always the same character. Perhaps that's why I didn't enjoy "Lights Out" because it felt like it was just the same character she was bringing to the screen each and everytime. Sarah Michelle Geller should be down as only really having a cameo seeing as she makes an appearance for an amazing five minutes on screen. I think the problem here, is that there is more the one story going on. Of course they are all linked to Kayako, but I do think it would have been easier to focus on one story as apposed to three.

Yes they all went inside the house, so they all have the curse right? But why feel the need to have so many people involved? It would have made more sense really to have all the characters linked to one another in some way, but they wern't. The teenage girls didn't know Karen or Aubrey, nor did they know Eason and visa versa. I love the fact that Takashi Shimizu provided information about what previously happened to Kayako and Toshio. I do think maybe it would have made more sense to explain that in the first film, but it works well with the storyline this time round none the less.

Although most of the scenes look really very good, there were a few moments of flash backs at the end of the movie that were obviously made to look fuzzy, however I found myself unable to actually see what was going on, I'd imagine that Takashi Shimizu was trying to tell his audience about past elements of characters, I just think he completely chose the wrong shot to use. It looks really bad. You know that awful grain you get when your TV isn't working properly, the picture is completely out of focus and just looks downright awful? That is what those scenes looked like, apart from the fact they had been deliberately  made to look like that.

I was expecting to see a little bit more of Sarah Michelle Geller's character Karen Davis, I found that to be a bit disappointing and rather unexpected judging by the synopsis that I had personally read. Editor Jeff Betancourt chose to use rather long gaps between scenes which is rather irritating, it doesn't allow for the next scene to flow nicely and build up some suspense. I am extremely hit and miss when it comes to horror movies.  Although I enjoyed it a bit more then the first one, it was still rather disappointing.

2/5 stars