Sarah Michelle Gellar

A couple of minutes in to “The Grudge 2,” a guy who’s got a grudge about his breakfast being delayed gets clanged in the head with a frying pan.

Halfway through the movie, I was ready to join the guy on the floor.

When the end finally, mercifully, arrived, I was still conscious, and certain of one thing: I could travel the country the rest of the year, hitting every multiplex and drive-in along the way, and I wouldn’t find a worse movie than “The Grudge 2.”

This is a sequel to a fairly scary movie from two years back. Sarah Michelle Gellar starred in the original, and she’s back for more here, though she’s savvy enough to turn in only a five-minute cameo.

Amber Tamblyn, best known as the star of the TV series “Joan of Arcadia,” stars in “Grudge 2” as a younger sister who slogs off to Tokyo to find out why sis burned a house where her boyfriend died, and to rescue her from a hospital bed where a dogged ghost with a bluish pallor and raven hair just won’t let her alone.

Takashi Shimizu, who wrote and directed the original “Grudges,” adapts his own work from Japanese to English here. His resume is littered with Japanese “Grudges” and English adaptations, so as best I can tell he’s done six or seven versions working off the same idea. If you’re one of those people who thinks practice makes perfect, or at least moves you closer to perfection, you need to see this movie to confirm that the opposite is possible, too.

Tamblyn’s character wants to find out what drove her sister over the edge, of course, so she decides to visit the not-quite-burned-out haunted house to see what’s up. Not a good idea. Also not a good idea on Shimuzu’s part is to try weaving two separate narratives into the story, one of them about Tokyo schoolgirls who visit the haunt on a dare and another about a kid in New York who hears funny noises through his apartment wall and wonders about a newcomer to the complex who wanders the halls moaning, a hoodie covering his or her face.

Then again, that New York apartment is home to the frying pan scene. It’s the only good moment in 95 minutes of sheer torture.

“The Grudge” had some genuinely frightening moments, enough so that when we rented the DVD at my house, my wife wouldn’t let me leave the room after the end credits rolled. If I bring home “The Grudge 2,” she’ll probably get the frying pan out and curse me for wasting her time.

Clang.

The bottom line is: DON’T GO.