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	The Grudge
	Takashi Shimizu Sarah Michelle Gellar, Bill Pullman, Jason Behr, Clea DuVall, KaDee Strickland, William Mapother, Grace Zabriskie, Rosa Blasi, Ted Raimi, Ryo Ishibashi, Yoko Maki, Takako Fuji, Yuya Ozeki 2004		With fans touting its frightening virtues, the Japanese horror film "Ju-On" developed enough buzz to spawn an English-language version, "The Grudge." Of course, cachet isn't everything. The original's writer/director Takashi Shimizu was hired to helm "The Grudge," and he conjured up enough inventive, skin-crawling imagery and sound design to ensure that the remake was better than the average slasher flick. But the final cut is a little short on big scares, and ends up feeling a lot like the standard "Don't go in the attic!"-style haunted-house movie. Sarah Michelle Gellar, famed as TV's monster-battling heroine Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is adequate as the obligatory damsel in distress — here, a do-gooder victimized by her visit to a seemingly innocuous house. Karen (Gellar) is a U.S. nursing student doing social work in Tokyo. When a colleague disappears, Karen subs for her on a field assignment and stumbles upon a curse bound to the home of a catatonic outpatient. Contact with this dwelling is not a good thing, as various unfortunates discover during "The Grudge." Terror and likely death are passed from house to human and from person to person, like an infection. As Karen learns why, so does the audience. "How" is another story. With Bill Pullman as an American expat professor, Jason Behr as Karen's boyfriend, and Clea DuVall as a wife whose husband should've found a better real estate broker.


	Wednesday, December 18, 2024





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