October 25, 2004
Movie Review: The Grudge
I was in the mood to be scared Friday night. This movie successfully did that. For this one, Takashi Shimizu pulls out all the tricks in Horror Movie 101: creepy kids, gross hair-over-the-face, scary phone calls, pyschic mother-in-laws. There's even a black cat in here.
But—yes, there is a but here—while the movie was scary at the time, it lacked the lingering terror that really good horror movies have. After watching the Ring, I was still scared days later. We came up with a pretty good theory as to why this is: while the story had a mystery to it, it was contained within itself, for the most part. The Ring drew us in, made the audience part of the mythos. The Grudge was just another scary story.
One last note to movie goers: be courteous to others. Laughing is okay when the movie is a) a comedy, or b) bad enough to be laughed at. I don't think it's really appropriate when you're afraid, embarrassed at being afraid, and making a joke of the situation in a show of low-brow machismo. People come to a movie like this to be frightened. Don't come if you think being frightened is going to reflect badly on your masculinity.
vivian at October 25, 2004 11:26 AM
Recently I have tried not to go to movies opening weekend! That's when the loudmouths tend to come out the most. The trouble is, sometimes it's more fun to see a scary movie in a packed theater. (I saw The Others that way and it was great!)
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kenji at October 25, 2004 11:32 AM
I agree with you, you just need to see the movie in the right crowd. Old people are better than young people here. I should start going to movie theatres around nursing homes and retirement communities.
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vivian at October 25, 2004 11:49 AM
If you were single you'd get the ADDED bonus of all the single silver foxes!
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Gabriel at October 25, 2004 01:51 PM
Thanks for the tip about going to scary movies. They rarely scare me and often just make me laugh. But when watching I'll be careful to chuckle inaudibly to myself rather than ruin the experience for others. I thought the Ring was funny but I watched it at home alone. Sadly, I totally lack even the faintest trace of machismo.
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kenji at October 25, 2004 01:55 PM
If one were to look up "macho" in the dictionary, they'd see your big, fat mug right there, Gabe!
Sadly, most "scary" movies are funny. I don't know, it's a judgement call.
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glynn at October 25, 2004 04:38 PM
It's clearly 60/40.
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novak at October 26, 2004 10:54 AM
whereas I am still completely freaked out by this movie. The thing I found interesting about both the Ring and this was the idea of "am I contaminated now?"
Both rely on the victims having been exposed to the thing: the video or the house. In this case, you walk away and say "but what about me.... I saw that video.... I saw that house ..... am I going to (urgh blargh urk choke weeze scary die!)
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