I have already reviewed the first American Grudge movie and there I talked about how much I loved it. The Grudge for me is right there close to the top of the American remakes of Japanese horror movies. I was pumped for a sequel, but while I would not say The Grudge 2 is a bad movie, it is nowhere near as good as the first one.
How to Download The Grudge 2
The Grudge 2 was released on October 13, 2006. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
The original Grudge was a horror movie that had great mythos and lore about it, but it was very easy to follow. I feel like with The Grudge 2 they tried to get a little bit too clever and the whole way the movie is presented which is not in a typical linear structure can make it hard to follow the first time you watch it. I will admit, it took a few watchings for me to like this as much as I do now.
I remember going to see this with my wife when it was first released and after it, we were not sure if we liked it or not. I can appreciate what they were trying to do here now and there are some things that I do like about The Grudge 2. To start with, I love how they got Sarah Michelle Gellar back, even if it is only for a little bit of screen time.
The movie takes place shortly after the events of the original Grudge. After finding out about the curse, Karren tried to burn down the house to get rid of it, only for her plan to fail. Karen is put into a psych ward where her younger sister, Aubrey travels to Japan to find out what the heck happened.
Story Development
One thing I like about the way the story is told in The Grudge 2 is that they do not mess around at the start. They have Aubrey get caught up to speed with what happened to Karren very quickly as well as meet Eason, a journalist who is investigating the curse. This leads to Karren trying to put it all together and stop the curse.
Complex Plotlines
That alone would be enough of a story for the movie, but The Grudge 2 has more than that going on! You see, we also have Allison who is an American exchange student in Japan and she gets tricked into going into the house and she gets caught up in this as well. But wait, there is more!
Expansion of Setting
While the first movie is only set in Japan. The Grudge 2 brings the curse back to America and here we see it terrorize other people. I do not want to say much more as we are getting very close to entering spoiler territory as there is another character called Jake who is a major part of what is to come. To be honest, I think that they had some great ideas for this movie, but they needed to flesh them out a bit more. The non-linear structure of the story is kind of cool once you figure it all out, but there is no denying it is still a bit confusing.
Final Thoughts
I know that many people hate The Grudge 2, but I do not think it is terrible. It can be hard to follow, but I do think it is the kind of movie that gets a bit better on repeat viewing. I like how they tried to mix things up and build the mythos of this curse even more and have it spread. Yet at the same time, I can see why some people have seen this once and do not think all that highly of it.
