Japanese haunted-house thriller, released in America just ahead of its Hollywood remake, simply called The Grudge. Sympathy may be stirred, if nothing like terror, at the spectacle of low-budget filmmaking reliant on imagination and ingenuity instead of special effects. Narrative context, however, is filled in so sketchily and belatedly that it plays less like a ghost story than like an audition: a well-stocked bag of tricks that might come in handy in a ghost story. Evidently director Takashi Shimizu passed the audition, as he was hired to do the Hollywood version, too, and handed a bigger budget to play with. So, then. What would be the motivation of the remake: to make better sense or to make better dollars? (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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