The Grudge

[luciano]

Both the Japanese version and the English version scared me, but the Japanese version had the most terrifying scene [which didn't appear in the English version]: the ghost coming out of the bathroom stall. I don't know why that was the one scene that really made me jump, but there you go. Maybe it was the fact that it looked like it was hovering as it leaned out and you couldn't see anything but the hair.

And then they use that one scene as the background of the one of the main menus on the DVD. You would think that would dull the fright but noooo.

[Atreides]

flamethrower said:

I just don't get why these dead people staring at you would make you die.

I'm of the opinion that, like in The Ring, the victims are literally scared to death by the ghosts.

This movie (and The Ring) scared the shit out of me. What disturbs me the most is that the ghosts are just relentless in their malice. They cannot be reasoned with or stopped -- they're just a pure evil.

And the fact that they take the form of weird-walking women with hair all over their faces gives me the shudders. The scene in the trailer for The Grudge 2 where the ghost is walking down the hospital corridor towards SMG gives me the willies (that trailer also gives away waaaay too much information about the movie).

[luciano]

Well, in The Grudge, a good chunk of the people weren't killed by just being stared at/scared to death. One disappeared completely when Petal's pet ghost drags her underneath the covers, one gets her jaw torn off, one gets beat up, and one drowns. The American couple dies the same way that the original couple did - the dude killed the wife and then himself. I think? I remember the detective saying that. The old lady - well, she's older and really doesn't need much to get that heart stopping, especially if something is hovering over her.

[Deleted]

Maybe you need to have a burning grudge before you die. Like, maybe the best way to deal with those vengeful ghosts is to really hate them, like totally a lot, so that when they scare you to death, you haunt them.

[bklynred]

I was stunned by how little The Grudge scared me. But I admire Sarah-Michelle Gellar for finding her niche and sticking with it.

[luciano]

Some of the killed folks do pop up again. In the Japanese version, three dead schoolgirls haunt the one schoolgirl that made it out of the house alive. That girl’s father, who had also been in the house, haunts her as well. The American version has Yoko [the girl with the ripped-off jaw] haunting Joxer. Both version have the sister with the unfortunate bedmate haunted by her brother.

I think it’s a bit like bstewart said – it’s the whole feeling around the act. The initial murder was full of real hatred – I mean, the dude didn’t even let the cat get away. That feeling was what manifested into those ghosts. Every death afterwards just fed into that hatred, becoming part of it and not a separate thing. The ghosts above are used as a way to get the original ghost near the person that has to be killed [the three schoolgirls back the girl up into the hands of the ghost, the sister gets tricked into opening the door, etc.] The only one we don’t see being killed by the actual ghost is Joxer and we don’t really see his death – just him screaming at Yoko and her missing jaw.