The Grudge

...we're suffering from a dearth of true boogeymen, the figures that loom in our shared pop-cultural nightmares. It's the faces that stay with us.

Pesce has hired some fine actors and squandered them on a plot that isn't ingenious enough to justify the heartlessness that's all part of the package at this end of the horror movie market.

The Grudge could have been something much more than just another notch in a never-ending franchise. As it is, the film is exactly as competent as it needs to be.

There is little that sets this apart from the earlier films.

Forget about chilling to the bone, The Grudge barely drops below room temperature.

We shouldn't have to put up with the barrel-scraping inadequacies of "creak, creak, creak, screamy face!" any more. So don't.

Its lack of surprising features, the extremely predictable jumpscares, and the complete disregard for the audience, treating the viewers like the dumbest people ever, make The Grudge one of the worst horror films of the last few years.

Perhaps the greatest horror here is seeing a director’s talent be so misused.

It ends up being an aggressively middle of the road movie and the kind we’ve come to expect in early January.

That's a lot of characters to introduce, find some nugget of personality for the audience to connect to, and then dispose of.