Sarah Michelle Gellar

Tokyo - After grossing more than $143m - about R859m - worldwide, Hollywood horror movie The Grudge, a remake of a popular Japanese film, will return to its homeland next week for nationwide release.

Directed by Takashi Shimizu, 32, the film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar took top post in the United States for two straight weeks after its opening in October, according to distributors.

"At first, I was not sure whether American people would understand fluid, ambiguous and vague Japanese horror because American horror is simple and dry," Shimizu told a news conference in Tokyo.

"But I was very excited that the American audience liked this film. The figures proved that the film was well accepted," he said, adding Spiderman director Sam Raimi also joined the film as a producer.

"Sam Raimi asked me to bring the Japanese taste of horror to Hollywood," Shimizu said on Tuesday.

Gellar played Karen, an American student studying welfare work at a university in Tokyo where she encounters a haunted house and horror unleashed by a female ghost and her deathly-white young son.

After showing in 20 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Russia, the Hollywood take on The Grudge will at last return to Japan next on Friday.

The original Japanese version of The Grudge ("Ju-On"), which had largely the same plot, grossed $4.7m - about R28m - and drew 400 000 movie-goers when released in 2002.

Takashige Ichise, one of the three producers for the film, said he was ecstatic about the remade film’s surprising success in the United States.

"I and Mr Shimizu were talking about making a film that would really scare away Americans. If Americans decided not to go to Japan after watching this film, it would mean a big success for us. We are the dispatchers of Japanese horror," Ichise said.

Of the $143m - about R859m - in box-office profits, the film racked up $110m - about R661m - in the United States alone where it was shown at more than 3 200 US theatres.

Apart from the United States, The Grudge ranked top in Britain, Brazil, Norway and the United Arab Emirates.