Best movie ever!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Here is what I saw in this old movie (2004 and I am writing this in 2017)that I just watched. There are doors. People walk in and out of the doors. Some doors lead to other doors which lead to stairways which have doors that lead to hallways which have many doors on each side. One of these doors will most certainly lead to a landing where there will be an apparition. Scared of the apparition you will run up (or down) the stairs to a door which will lead to another hallway (or a room) with an apparition. You will be scared.

The Grudge (2004): Dir: Takashi Shimizu / Cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Bill Pullman, Clea Duvall, KaDee Strickland: Misleading title in a graphic horror film where many nameless victims are mutilated to the delight of an audience that desires to see more of this tripe. It is shocking to hear an audience cheer during such crap. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a caregiver who discovers that the mansion she is visiting is haunted. There is an elderly lady who sleeps and then shrieks at ghosts, and Gellar is not long identifying her problem. Starts out well with a suicide but becomes routine after the umpteenth person is killed. The ending is a complete cheat but what really stands out is the film's inability to make any sense. Why not create an interesting thriller about trauma? Instead director Takashi Shimizu Americanizes his Japanese film for no other reason than to allow Hollywood to rape his craft. Gellar holds her own as the caregiver overwhelmed by haunting images and decides to investigate the history behind it all. Other roles are not so lucky and fall into that camera stalk and kill cliché. Jason Behr, Bill Pullman and Clea Du Vall are completely wasted in roles that are subdued by visuals. The special effects are done with appeal but unfortunately the screenplay was not given the same regard. The only grudge held should come from Japan. Score: 2 ½ / 10

Karen, a young social carer, is sent to a home for her first assignment to look after a woman who suffers from dementia when Yoko, the woman's regular carer, fails to show up. Not long after she arrives at the house, Karen hears noises coming from inside a bedroom closet that's been taped up, so she opens it and finds a young boy and his cat. After contacting her boss, Alex, for help, she waits at the house, but it's during this time that an unspeakable horror manifests causing the death of the woman and sending Karen to go into a state of shock. After being released from hospital, Karen learns of the murders of Kayako Saeki and her son Toshio, and, along with Detective Nakagawa, she starts to realise that the vengeful spirits of the Saeki family somehow still reside inside the home and anyone who ventures into it may well become the next victim.The Grudge, as we all know, is an American remake of the Japanese hit Ju-on, and is, in my opinion, just as good. This version sticks pretty close to the original and a lot of the scenes are the same, but a few have been added for this version that weren't in the original i.e. you see more of what happens to Kayako & Toshio, and watch out for the exceedingly creepy Yoko.The story is told in the same non-linear style, but for some reason didn't seem as confusing. Also, being a Hollywood film, you'd expect a CGI-fest for the Kayako scenes, but again, like the original, these were kept to a minimum with actress Takako Fuji doing all her own creepy contortions & movements. This may be because it was the same director who done Ju-on, who knows, but it's good that CGI never over-shadowed the story.I enjoyed the original Japanese version, but to be honest I personally thought that this remake was actually the scarier of the two. There will be die-hard Japanese horror fans that will stupidly ridicule this version just because it's an American remake, but if you've not seen it just ignore the trolls and judge it for yourself.

Some viewers may be confused by the constant jumping back and forth in time. This may be intentional; in one of the final scenes, we see that Peter (Bill Pullman) can sense the presence of Karen in the room some three years later.SPOILER ALERT: To straighten out the timeline, this is the order in which the thirteen deaths are shown: 7,5,6,8,9,10,4,11,1,2,3,12,13. That is, although Yoko's death is the first shown in the movie, it was actually the seventh to occur. The deaths occurred in this order: The Japanese woman Kayako and her son Toshio were murdered by her jealous husband Takeo, who then killed himself. Peter died shortly after (killed by the ghost of Toshio.) Three years later, Jean was killed, followed by her husband. Yoko arrived and was killed. The mother Emma died (and Karen ended up in the hospital. That evening, Susan (Emma's daughter) died, never having gotten word that her whole family was dead. Alex (Karen's boss) was killed by the ghost of Yoko) and the police inspector was killed by the ghost of the Takeo. Finally, Kayako's ghost killed Karen's boyfriend, and (ultimately) Karen.