The Grudge

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The Grudge
The Movie Poster
Directed by	Takashi Shimizu
Produced by	Sam Raimi Robert Tapert
Written by	Stephen Susco
Starring	Sarah Michelle Gellar Jason Behr William Mapother Clea DuVall KaDee Strickland Grace Zabriskie Bill Pullman
Music by	Christopher Young
Cinematography	Katsumi Yanagishima
Editing by	Jeff Betancourt
Distributed by	Sony (USA) Universal Studios (UK)
Release date(s)	October 22, 2004 February 11, 2005
Running time	92 min. (98 min. director's cut)
Country	USA
Language	English Japanese
Budget	$10 Million [1]
Followed by	The Grudge 2 (2006)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Grudge is the 2004 American remake of the Japanese film Ju-on: The Grudge. The film is the first installment in the American horror film series The Grudge. The film was released in North America on October 22, 2004 ^[2] and is directed by Takashi Shimizu (director of the original series)^[3] while Stephen Susco scripted the remake. In the same tradition as the original series, the plot of the film is told through a non-linear sequence of events and includes several intersecting subplots. The film is rated PG-13 by the MPAA and 15 by the BBFC its content of mature thematic material, disturbing images/terror/violence, and some sensuality ^[4]. The film has earned a cult status among many users on various Internet forums including Rotten Tomatoes^[5] and Internet Movie Database ^[6]. The film has also spawned several sequels including The Grudge 2 (which was released on October 13, 2006) ^[7] and The Grudge 3.

Tagline: It never forgives. It never forgets

Contents 1 Synopsis 1.1 The Saeki Murders and Peter Kirk 1.2 The Williams Family 1.3 The Social Workers 2 Differences between the Saeki murders 3 Cast 4 Characters 5 Reception 5.1 Sequels 6 DVD release 7 Trivia 8 References To Other Movies 9 Basic References 9.1 Specific References 10 External links

[edit] Synopsis

The Grudge describes a curse that is born when someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage or extreme sorrow. Those who encounter this murderous supernatural force die and the curse is reborn repeatedly, passed from victim to victim in an endless, growing chain of horror. The following events are explained in their actual order (which differs from the order shown on film).

[edit] The Saeki Murders and Peter Kirk

(Note: These events happen three years prior to the events in the film and several events portrayed in this section are shown in the director's cut, but parts of it are in the regular version.)

Kayako Saeki (Takako Fuji), a young Japanese woman, is unhappily married to Takeo Saeki(Takashi Matsuyama). Kayako becomes obsessed with Peter Kirk (Bill Pullman), an American college professor working in Japan. She chronicles her fantasies about the man she does not know in a diary. She follows him and sends him love letters. One night Kayako returns home and enters their bedroom at the end of the hall upstairs. She finds her husband reading her diary. His face is intense with fury as he bites his nails with one hand and flips through the pages with the other. He glares at her and and drops the journal on the ground. Takeo walks towards Kayako, cracking his knuckles. He charges; ripping her clothes shoving her into the wall. She tries to struggle free and screams. Takeo shoves her to the floor, banging the walls while yelling and screaming. Kayako crawls down the stairs, but Takeo catches her at the bottom and snaps her neck to a 90 degree angle. She makes a croaking noise in an eerie death rattle that will become the notification of her ghost throughout the film. Takeo looks up to see their eight-year-old son, Toshio (Yuya Ozeki), at the top of the stairs; a witness to the murder. Takeo leaves Kayako dying on the floor, to drag Toshio into the bathroom and drown him in the bathtub. Takeo also slits Toshio's cat's throat and tosses the carcass on the floor of the bathroom. He wraps Kayako's body in plastic trash bags and places the dying corpse far in the corner of the attic. He puts Toshio's body in his bedroom closet and tapes it shut. Although it is not said how Takeo died, it can be assumed that Kayako's ghost killed him since he was found hanging by her hair in Toshio's closet.

Peter Kirk comes to the Saeki residence the next day with one of Kayako's love letters in hand. He sees Toshio's hands hanging out of the bathroom window, bruised and scratched. Peter goes inside and decides to stay with the boy until the parents return. He calls his wife to tell her while Toshio sits on the floor in his room, coloring. It is the same room where Takeo hung himself, but his body has disappeared.

Peter looks through the rest of the house, entering Takeo and Kayako's bedroom in back where he finds several family photos in a pile on the floor. Kayako's face has been torn out of every one of them. He finds Kayako's diary and thumbs through it, learning more about Kayako's obsession with him. The closet door catches his eye and, upon inspecting it, he finds the cut-outs of Kayako's face nailed all over the door and smeared with blood. He notices buzzing flies and opens the door. Kayako's lifeless body falls out from the attic and lands on the closet shelf. Peter recoils in horror after seeing his own reflection in her dead eyes. He runs into the hall and hears thumping noises coming from Toshio's room. He opens the door and sees Takeo hanging in not a noose, but Kayako's hair stringing down from the ceiling. His feet are swinging and banging the against the wall due to a ghostly blue Toshio pushing them. Peter runs from the house. The next morning, in front of his wife, Maria (Rosa Blasi), he commits suicide by jumping off the balcony just outside his apartment bedroom.

[edit] The Williams Family

Matthew Williams (William Mapother), his wife, Jennifer (Clea DuVall), and ailing mother, Emma (Grace Zabriskie) move to Tokyo as a result of Matthew's promotion. His sister, Susan (KaDee Strickland), also lives in Tokyo and helps them find a home. Matthew and Jennifer decide on a suburban house despite Emma's uneasy feelings. Emma's health and condition deteriorate rapidly following the move. Jennifer becomes disenchanted with life in Japan as she cannot sleep during Emma's restless stirrings, cannot speak the language, and has gotten lost. Matthew assures her things will improve and that if they don't, the family will return to the United States.

Jennifer falls asleep on a couch in the living room, after having eaten a bowl of ramen noodle soup, which she left on the table. The sound of the bowl hitting the floor wakes her. She scolds Emma for making the mess, but then sees a trail of footprints leading out to the hall. A cat leads her upstairs into their bedroom (Toshio's former bedroom). The door closes behind her.

Matthew returns from work and finds the house in complete disarray with trash strewn everywhere. He calls out to his wife, who doesn't answer. He finally finds her on their bed, unable to move or speak and struggling to breathe. Before he can call an ambulance, he is startled by the sudden appearance of a young boy making cat sounds. He backs up against the closet as something drops from above inside it, and Toshio appears overhead of Matthew.

Matthew's sister, Susan, is preparing to leave the office. She has made many unsuccessful attempts to contact her family and is growing concerned (This takes place while Karen Davis is in the house with Emma for the first time). She hears croaking sounds (the death rattle) in the hallway, so she quickly exits to the stairs. Her phone rings; the caller ID indicating Matthew. When she answers, the terrible death rattle is all that greets her. The stairwell lights flicker and shatter one by one, coming from the top down as well as the bottom up. Susan looks over the railing to see Kayako's ghost crawling jerkily up the stairs. Susan rushes out, but something grabs her rabbit's foot charm on her phone. It snaps off before she can shut the door. When she looks back she sees Kayako's ghost holding the charm, who apparently cannot move into the lit hallway. Susan flees to the security office, struggling with her panic and the language barrier to ask for help. Susan watches the monitor as the security guard investigates, moving farther away and pasts the area. Kayako's black ghost materializes in the hallway and walks toward the security camera. Susan runs from the building.

Susan takes a taxi cab back to her apartment. She enters an elevator, and it ascends several floors. She does not notice Toshio who appears on every floor, watching her through the elevator glass. Toshio is not on the floor of her apartment. Susan makes it safely inside when her phone rings. It is Matthew claiming to have forgotten her apartment number and asking to be buzzed inside. She tells him where to find her and activates the buzzer with the phone. Before she can hang up, the doorbell rings immediately. Thinking Matthew couldn't possibly have had time to arrive, she checks the peephole of the door. It is Matthew, so Susan thinks he's been pranking her. She angrily throws open the door, but no one is there. The death rattle sounds loudly through the phone in Susan's hand. She throws it to the ground, ejecting the batteries, but the sound still comes. Cowering in bed, Susan reaches beneath the covers and pulls out the rabbit's foot and drops it in fear. A lump billows from underneath the covers and moves toward Susan. She lifts the sheets and finds herself staring into the face of Kayako's ghost. It yanks her under the covers, and the sheets fall flat upon the now empty bed.

[edit] The Social Workers

(The events in this section are shown throughout the film, though they take place in time shortly after the Williams move in to the house.)

Yoko (Yoko Maki), is a worker from the welfare center hired to tend Emma and clean the house. She greets an unresponsive Emma, then puts on her Walkman and sets about cleaning the filthy house. Strange noises from the attic prompt her to take off her headphones and investigate. She opens the closet and inspects the attic with a flashlight, coming face to face with Kayako's ghost. This scene is extended in the director's cut.

When Yoko does not show for work the next day, her boss Alex (Ted Raimi), asks Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) to cover for her. Karen enters and finds Emma on the floor of her bed area in a catatonic state. Karen cleans her and makes her comfortable before cleaning the house, which is filthy again. When she enters the upstairs bedroom (Toshio's), she finds a closet that's been taped shut and sounds coming from within. She is shocked to find a Japanese boy and a cat inside. Karen immediately calls her boss. When she finishes the call, she looks up to see the boy at the top of the stairs. She asks his name. "Toshio," he says. Emma begins stirring and muttering in the other room. As Karen calms her, a dark shadow of hair emerges from a corner of the room, terrifying Emma. Karen looks up to see Kayako reaching for Emma. Karen draws Kayako's attention. Kayako's hair, which was covering her face, flies back to reveal the whites of her eyes. The irises roll into place and focus on Karen as she backs away in fright.

Alex finally arrives to find Emma dead and Karen in a state of shock. Karen is taken to the hospital while detectives question Alex. Detective Nakagawa (Ryo Ishibashi) asks Alex about the people that lived there, and tell him that Yoko has been missing from work. The detectives notice that the phone handset is missing from the cradle and push the page button. They trace the sounds to the attic where they discover the corpses of Matthew and his wife. They also make the grisly discovery of a jaw (Yoko's) and wonder to whom it belongs and where the rest of the body might be. Later in the movie, Yoko is spotted again by Alex as she is shuffling down the stairs of the caretaking facility at which Alex works. Alex calls out repetitively to Yoko, who does not answer in any way until she reaches the bottom of the stairs. She then turns around to reveal her face, now horribly disfigured by the absence of her jaw and nothing to support her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

Karen tells her story to detectives at the hospital, emphasizing the appearance of a boy. She is constantly tormented by Kayako, in her shower, on a bus, etc. In the days following her experience in the house. She researches the house and learns of the murders.

Detective Nakagawa becomes convinced that the rash of deaths and missing people is connected to the house when he views the entire security video taken at the workplace of Susan. He watches as Kayako proceeds down the hall, then to come face to face with the camera, issuing her famous death rattle as the video fuzzes out. He then returns to the Saeki house with two cans of gasoline, intent on burning it down. He is distracted by sounds of Toshio drowning in the bath tub. He enters and finds a boy, and tries to revive him. His eyes snap open, and Takeo appears behind him. He shoves Nakagawa into the tub and drowns him like Toshio.

Karen questions Peter Kirk's wife who does not appear to know anything about the house, its occupants, or why her husband killed himself (This scene is also extended in the director's cut). She allows Karen to search through old photos. Karen discovers a living Kayako in the background of every photograph, clearly following the couple. Karen returns to the house after learning that her boyfriend, Doug (Jason Behr), has gone there looking for her.

Inside the house, Karen experiences a flashback of Peter Kirk's visit. She watches him, reliving the experience with him finding the body of Kayako and leaving the home. Karen flees downstairs. Doug grabs her ankle before she leaves. He is incapacitated and she tries to drag him to the door (here is another shot only in the director's cut showing Takeo slitting the cat's throat, drowning Toshio and putting Kayako in the attic). A door opens upstairs. Kayako's ghost crawls down the stairs toward them and kills Doug. Karen opens the door, but Kayako's ghost is suddenly there. She slams the door and kicks over one of the gas cans. She takes Doug's lighter and tosses it onto the gas. The screen goes white (in the director's cut, there are shots of Karen being put into an ambulance van).

At the hospital, Karen learns that the house was saved from burning and mourns Doug's dead body. She shakes off a vision of Kayako coming from beneath the sheet that cover him, but Kayako appears again behind her making that familiar death rattle.

[edit] Differences between the Saeki murders

In the original Ju-on: The Grudge, Kayako is murdered by Takeo off-screen, except for the montage in the opening that shows him after she is murdered. This makes the Ju-on murder of Kayako a mystery. It's believed that Kayako was murdered by a utility knife due to the slash marks on both her body and face. A deleted scene in the DVD release shows Takeo slashing Kayako with a penknife. One possibility is that Kayako saw Takeo reading her diary most likely in their bedroom, and he attacked her, pushing her down. She crawls down the stairs and is followed by Takeo. Kayako is cornered by Takeo and backs up against the wall by the door. Toshio is watching from the top of the stairs, not really understanding what is happening. Takeo reaches his hand out for Kayako's face to slash her neck. Toshio goes and hides in his closet. Takeo brings Kayako up to their bedroom and slashes her with a utility knife. Then he wraps her in a plastic bag and puts her in the attic. He drowns Toshio and slits his cat's throat. Takeo shoves Toshio with the cat back in the closet. Kayako's body was found in the attic, and Takeo died on a nearby street because of Kayako ghost (shown in the original Ju-on: The Curse).

In the remake, Kayako is murdered when Takeo breaks her neck. The scenes that outline the massacre are shown off-screen in the theaterical cut, but all is shown in the director's cut. In the director's cut, a flashback before the film's ending shows Kayako standing in the doorway of her bedroom, realising that Takeo is reading her diary and knows about her infatuation with Peter Kirk. He then chases her into the hallway and rips her dress and knocks her to the floor twisting her ankle as he is screaming and hitting on the walls. Kayako then crawls down the stairs in an attempt to escape, but is grabbed by Takeo who snaps her neck with both hands. These events are witnessed by Toshio who was immediately drowned by Takeo with his cat (described in The Saeki Murders).

[edit] Cast

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Karen Davis, an exchange student who takes a job as a care worker to get a social credit.
• Jason Behr as Doug, Karen's boyfriend, who attends the University of Tokyo, and has a part-time job working at a restaurant.
• William Mapother as Matthew Williams, a "number cruncher" who receives a promotion from his superiors that requires him to relocate to Tokyo.
• Clea DuVall as Jennifer, Matthew's lonely wife who is trying to adjust to a new life in Japan.
• KaDee Strickland as Susan, Matthew's younger sister, who resides and works in Tokyo, and who helps her brother, sister-in-law and mother choose and move into their new home.
• Grace Zabriskie as Emma, Matthew's mother, who is suffering from senile dementia.
• Bill Pullman as Peter, a teacher working in Tokyo, who receives a number of love letters from Kayako, a woman he does not know.
• Rosa Blasi as Maria, Peter's wife.
• Ted Raimi as Alex, the director of the care centre that Yoko and Karen are stationed at.
• Ryo Ishibashi as Nakagawa, a detective whose colleagues all died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances during the investigation of the Saeki family murder case. He is all too aware of the house and it's strange history.
• Yoko Maki as Yoko, a Japanese care worker who speaks English, and is assigned to care for Emma Williams.
• Yuya Ozeki as Toshio, the eight year-old son of Kayako and Takeo Saeki.
• Takako Fuji as Kayako Saeki, a married woman who develops an attraction towards Peter Kirk.
• Takashi Matsuyama as Takeo Saeki, Kayako's husband, who is angry when he discovers her feelings for another man. He murders Kayako prior to the film's events and put a curse on the house.
• Courtney Webb as Sick Girl, a young girl who is in the same hospital as Karen. She only makes a brief cameo.

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of The Grudge characters

[edit] Reception

The film opened on 3,348 theatres in North America ^[8]. The film generated $39.1 million in ticket sales in its first weekend (October 22 - 24 2004). The film later declined 43% on its second weekend by earning $21.8 million, becoming the first horror film to top the Halloween box office since House on Haunted Hill ^[9]. The film made a total of US$110,359,362 in North America alone and $183,474,602 worldwide, far exceeding the expectations of box office analysts and Sony Pictures executives. Sony also stated the film cost less than $10 million to produce, thereby making it one of the most profitable films of the year. ^[10].

The film has a 40% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes (with 58 out of 144 film reviews counted fresh) and has received a weighted average^[11] rating of 5.7/10 at the Internet Movie Database^[12].

[edit] Sequels

The Grudge 2

Main article: The Grudge 2

A sequel, The Grudge 2, was announced three days after the film opened ^[13]. The sequel stars Amber Tamblyn as Karen's little sister Aubrey who is sent to Japan by her mother to bring Karen home from Japan.

The Grudge 3

Main article: The Grudge 3

A sequel to The Grudge 2 was announced by Sony during Comic-Con 2006. Takashi Shimizu stated he is offered to direct the sequel but would rather produce the film ^[14].

[edit] DVD release

The film was released on DVD on February 1, 2005. The film was released as a standard version of the film with only a few special features ^[15]. On May 17, 2005, the MPAA-unrated director's cut of The Grudge was released onto DVD in North America. The release included several scenes that were cut to achieve a lower rating from the MPAA, as well as others which were removed for pacing and plot reasons. This version of the film was used as the theatrical run in Japan. The release also contained new deleted scenes and commentaries, stories In a Corner, and other content involving Gakko no Kaiden G ^[16].

[edit] Trivia

• Two cast members previously worked with Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Clea DuVall starred in the episode "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" as Marcie Ross, and Jason Behr was on episode "Lie to Me" as Billy 'Ford' Fordham.
• Bill Pullman played the role of Toshio's stepfather in the 2006 parody film Scary Movie 4.
• In 2006, Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame released a humorous audio commentary for the film on their RiffTrax service.

[edit] References To Other Movies

The DVD case of the movie is a reference to that of the Japanese horror film Ringu.

[edit] Basic References

[edit] Specific References

• Gray, Brandon. "'Grudge' Grabs No. 1", Box Office Mojo, 25 October 2004.. Retrieved June 9, 2005.
• Gray, Brandon. "'Ray,' 'Saw' See Robust Bows", Box Office Mojo, 1 November 2004.. Retrieved June 9, 2005.
• The Grudge. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on June 13, 2005.
• "The Japanese Version of 'The Grudge' Exposed!!!", Bloody-Disgusting, March 5, 2005.. Retrieved June 7, 2005.

[edit] External links

• Official site
• The Grudge at the Internet Movie Database
• The Attic Crawlspace - Ju-on/The Grudge fansite
• Director Takashi Shimizu Q&A

The Ju-on Curse
Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Short Films: Katasumi and 4444444444 | Tales of The Grudge
Juon Series: Ju-on | Ju-on 2 | The Grudge | The Grudge 2 | The Grudge 3
American Films: The Grudge | The Grudge 2 | The Grudge 3
Characters
Aubrey | Karen | Kayako | Takeo | Toshio
Locations
Chicago, Illinois | Pasadena | Tokyo, Japan