Review: The Grudge

Image courtesy of Screen Gems.

Nicolas Pesce's new version of "The Grudge" is a reboot of a remake of a foreign film that's based on a short film. Which version is the best, you might ask? "None of the above" is the correct answer.

Pesce likely got the gig for his creepy and grim - but not as good as some contended it was - 2016 film "The Eyes of My Mother" and last year's "Piercing," which graced my top 10 worst list. I'll say this for the director - he's not short on style. He knows how to set a scene visually and creep out an audience through ambience.

That being said, he's taken on a very tired property and tried to breathe fresh air into it with numerous silly jump scares - of which only one actually scared me - and a lot more gore than you might remember if you've seen the two "Grudge" sequels from the aughts starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. The problem is when you're trying to reboot a series that wasn't very good in the first place, well, whaddaya got?

To make matters worse, this latest "Grudge" film jumps back and forth confusingly between various timelines - the present, 2004 and some other period during the past 15 years. Seemingly, the only reason for this is so the film's signature ghosts can terrorize a bunch of people, rather than just one family. It's often difficult to discern the relationships between the various timelines, which is ultimately explained (somewhat) toward the end - just not in a satisfactory manner.

Andrea Riseborough (of "Mandy") plays a detective who has moved to a small town with her young son, who only exists here for the purpose of occasionally providing Riseborough's character with a scare, after her husband dies of cancer. She quickly becomes involved in a case of a woman's decaying body in a car. This, in turn, leads to a creepy house where a bunch of murders took place over the years.

One case involves an older couple (Frankie Faison and Lin Shaye) who are tormented by a ghostly girl in the house, while another has to do with a younger couple (John Cho and Betty Gilpin) who are expecting a baby. Another murder in which a mother killed her husband and young daughter is also thrown into the mix, but it's only trotted out in full toward the end. I'm still not sure what purpose it serves.

I love a good horror movie as much as the next person. But let's be honest, most of the best horror movies of recent years have been independents - "The Cabin in the Woods," "Get Out," "Us" and "The Conjuring" movies are the rare studio horror pictures that succeeded.

This latest version of "The Grudge" is yet another attempt at reviving an existing property that brought in some money at some point. Unfortunately, the series wasn't particularly engaging even in good times and this reboot, despite some stylistic touches from Pesce, just doesn't cut it. I wasn't a huge fan of "The Eyes of My Mother," but it at least bore a stamp of originality. Seek it out instead of watching this film.