Sarah Michelle Gellar

GRUDGE 2 tests in Chicago! Scary bad or horrifyingly good? Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an early review of THE GRUDGE 2 from a test screening in Chicago. I’m a huge fan of the original JU-ON: THE GRUDGE. I saw that at AFM long, long, long before they released it theatrically, and right before Sam Raimi’s Ghosthouse Pictures picked up the remake rights. It was one of the scariest theater experiences I have ever had. The remake didn’t play very well to me... hated the CGI usage (for the most part), especially that slot-machine eyes effect... god that was horrible. So, I’m not holding out too much hope for the sequel, but if I was this review would have put me right. This guy hhhhaaaaatttteeeeedddd the movie. Really hated it. Keep in mind that the film was most likely not finished, so it could take some steps in the right direction before its released, but from the sounds of things those steps are going to have to be pretty drastic. Enjoy the review, but beware. Our spy doesn’t shy away from spoilers. You’ll know the whole movie by the time you get to the bottom, so don’t venture too far if you don’t want to know!

Hey Harry, I got a chance to sit in on a test screening of the Grudge 2 last week and thought you might want to hear about it.

The short version:

AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS!!!!

The long version: SPOILER WARNING----

I think the makers of this film had a grudge against the audience, because this movie hurt to watch. Its awful, it tries too hard to be scary and ends up looking corny. The acting is far worse than the plot. Speaking of plot...The movie starts out with Jennifer Beals living in a apartment complex in Chicago. She ends up killing her husband by pouring hot bacon grease on his head then beating him with the frying pan. It was pretty lame so right away I knew this movie was going to be just as bad as the first if not worse,...it was worse.

The movie starts off right after the first one ends. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character Karen is locked up in the hospital accused of murdering her boyfriend and setting fire to the cursed house. Her little sister Aubrey, played horribly by Amber Tamblyn, shows up to bring her home.

Well, that old Grudge ghost ends up chasing Karen all the way up to the roof of the hospital and throwing her off. Big whoop. She was in the movie for a total of five minutes and I think she still gets top billing.

Next we meet Allison, played by Arielle Kebbel. In everything else this chick is in she is smoking hot but in this she look pretty ragged and wears and obvious black wig. She wants to fit in with the "IN" crowd and decides to venture up to the cursed house with two hotties and is willing to be locked in the closet for one minute. After about three seconds she begins to freak out and sees the ghost. She runs home crying as her friends have a good laugh. They are then killed off in very lame ways. One is pulled through a mirror never to be seen again and the other is swallowed alive by, I shit you not, GHOST HAIR, in a public telephone booth no less.

NO WAIT!!! I PROMISE IT GETS BETTER....Okay I lied, but you’ve read this far, you might as well finish right? Aubrey ventures into the house with her new journalist friend Eason. They are now both cursed and begin seeing strange things, like objects in photograghs that werent there before. Eason and Aubrey do a little research and find out that the ghost’s mother was an exorcist in a small village a few miles away. She used to exorcise demons and "feed" them to her daughter. Eason then dies when the ghost jumps out of a plastic bucket in a dark room. Scary shit!!!

The movie then jumps back and forth to Jennifer Beals and her family in Chicago. Their young son begins to hear strange noise coming from the neighbors apartment. He works up the courage to become a felon and commits a B and E on the neighbors place. There he sees a person dressed like the unabomber sitting in a room taping newspapers over the windows. Big surprise, he runs away screaming.

Aubrey in the meantime ventures to the small village to see the Ghost’s mother. She basically tells Aubrey that she was a con artist and if her daughter is a ghost, she is only a ghost because she thinks she is a ghost. Can you believe this crap???

Aubrey goes back to the house only to be killed by the ghost of the husband that killed his wife and child, along with the family cat. We then cut back to Chicago to find out that the person dressed like the unabomber is really Allison, back from Japan and living next door to Jennifer Beals and her family. Jennifer Beals goes nuts and kills her entire family except for her step son. He gets killed five minutes later with Allison in the apartment hallway by the ghost. And the ghost lived happily ever after. The End.

So there you have it. The ghost is now in living in Chicago while the ghost of Aubrey is now haunting the house in Japan. So I guess the ghost just needed a vacation, and what better place than the midwest.

I know it was a free movie and all but I left wishing I had spent the last two hours of my life getting a root canal. And like always we had to fill out a survey at the end of the movie. They asked what movie the Grudge 2 reminded me of. I could only think of one horror movie sequel that was this bad, and that is THE RING 2. So if you like that, you will love this. The kept several people who rated the movie excellent in the theater. I can only hope it was to offer a complimentary C.A.T Scan, cause there was obviously something wrong with these people.

So I hope this helps.

"PLAN B"