The Grudge (2020)

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The Grudge follows several different people as they encounter the titular grudge and the ghosts involved. This is a movie I was somewhat curious about, but I was skeptical to. This movie is a horror movie being released over the first weekend of January, a month that is pretty much reserved for movies that studios have little faith in (with some exceptions here and there). What’s interesting is that this movie really isn’t a remake. It’s sort of a spin-off that takes place in the same universe as the 2004 remake. The actors all feel like they are game. It helps knowing that most of them already have proven talent. Some of the gore is alright, too. I kind of appreciate that this movie is willing to go for that R-rating in an otherwise PG-13 franchise. The biggest problem this new Grudge movie suffers from is that it doesn’t really offer anything else that’s all that new. It offers the same style of scares as before. The characters don’t really feel all that interesting. They aren’t shallow by any means. For whatever reason though, I don’t particularly care. In the end, this movie doesn’t really seem to have a reason to exist, other than to just make another Grudge movie because there might be some nostalgia. This comes across as though they had about three or four possible ideas for a movie, and they squished them all together in one movie. It makes things feel jumbled, and hard to keep interested in. This is a movie I would best sum up in one word: mediocre. 

4 / 10