Layman movie review: The Grudge

Hot damn! I really liked this movie. I had to watch it on my own, because my "roommate" is too wussy-ass, and, in retrospect, it's probably best I did, because I can't remember a movie that was so solidly skin-crawlingly creepy. In fact, it got so scary that every so often I had to pause the DVD and flip it over to Sean Hannity on Fox News, just so I could remind myself that bile spewing Nazi fuckholes are much more frightening in real life than fictional blue-skin, bloody-eyed, black-mouth Japanese kids.

A few observations about the movie, or tangentally pertaining to the movie:

1.) Sarah Michelle Gellar is a damn good actress. Anybody who watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer with any regularity can tell you that, (especially Season 6 when she and the rest of the cast are put through all sorts of hell and relentless misery.) I got on the Buffy bandwagon late, Netflixing the DVDs season by season. It's pretty damn good, too, especially once they get past the monster-of-the-week stuff in the early season and a half. Every time I flipped past Buffy and saw those corny-ass fights I just assumed the show would be lame, but when you see the entire show, and everything in context, it's pretty damn good. And Sarah Michelle Gellar, as I said, is a damn fine actress. Of course, she doesn't do much in The Grudge other than act petrified by fear. Not only that, I was suprised it is not even really a Sarah Michelle Gellar movie. There are suprisingly long periods where she is not even in it. And her story doesn't really pick up until about 50 minutes in. I suppose she just got top billing because she is the biggest star, and she survives 'til the end (BELATED SPOILER WARNING!!!)

2.) Japanese horror movies are better than American horror movies (kinda like how Japanese cars are better than American cars, which suck ass.) Even American remakes seem better than U.S. made ones. I think because they concentrate on creepiness instead of splatter. I dunno. Feel free to recommend some good Japanese and foreign horror flicks for me to put on the Ol' Netflix cue. (Thanks, playah!)

3.) I do have one complaint about the movie, but this is really more of a complaint in general about modern horror movies. They simply CAN'T end any more without that last final minute scare. In the case of this movie, and many others like it, it doesn't so much end as stop. If Sarah Michelle Gellar goes through all this shit to survive attacks by these creepy ghost things and then at the very last minute of the movie gets attacked by a creepy ghost thing, that is NOT a fucking end. That is simply the movie coming to a halt. And, while it gives you that final scare, from a story perspective, it really fucking sucks. Still, I guess if you go by scare and creepy quotiant it was pretty good. Shit, I see on Amazon there is a director's cut. Wonder how different it is.

Anyway, I liked this movie.