A remake of a Japanese film, Ju-On: The Grudge, which was not much good to begin with. Perhaps, there, a better-than-usual rationale for a remake, especially because the same man occupies the director's chair, Takashi Shimizu: a second chance to get it right. No change, either, in the Tokyo locale, albeit repopulated with such Western invaders as Sarah Michelle Gellar (boning up on a Japanese phrase book), Clea DuVall, KaDee Strickland, and Bill Pullman. The rudimentary haunted-house premise (a curse on all ye who enter here) permits little development -- a fact underscored by the backward jumps in time -- but permits nonstop games of hide-and-seek and peekaboo with a tag team of malevolent spirits. If the game-playing is slicker the second time around, that's precisely what's wanted when you're pulling a series of fast ones. The means are still modest, and the frights honest. Best of them: the police detective, alone in his office, watching a surveillance tape of an inky shadow that pools in an empty hallway, solidifies into a female form, and advances straight toward the camera -- or is it toward the TV screen? (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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