The Grudge 2: A Brief Review

As I have made quite obvious, I’m quite the horror fan. I just got back from seeing The Grudge 2 (#1 in the box office this weekend by the way), and am on the fence about it. I really enjoy the supernatural horror more than the gory horror (although I am very much looking forward to Saw III), so The Grudge series is much more my speed.

Although I can’t say I was necessarily disappointed with The Grudge 2, I wasn’t all that impressed with it. The story was good, albeit a bit too familiar. It seems like a lot of the scares in 2 were the same as in the original (like the little boy sitting in the corner and the girl showing up under the blankets), which was a bit frustrating, but still managed to get the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up a good number of times.

One of my main issues with the movie was that the moments that should have been epic and exciting were less than exciting and a bit poorly timed. For example (semi-spoiler coming), the point at which we realize what is going on with the timeline happens at a very awkward moment. I feel like with a little better acting these disappointments would have been averted. Unfortunately the acting was less than stellar, and I feel like the movie suffered for it.

Overall, if you liked the first one, you’ll like the second one. I’m not going to recommend against seeing it in the theatre, but I’m also not going to suggest rushing out and seeing it right now.