A word on Japanese director Takashi Shimizu, who directed the classic 2004 American horror movie “The Grudge.”
I have seen five of Shimizu’s movies and loved every one of them. Four of those films are from his “Ju-On” franchise, including “Ju-On: The Grudge” in 2002, “Ju-On: The Grudge 2” in 2003, this installment and the seriously underrated “The Grudge 2” in 2006. The fifth is an unrelated 2014 movie called “Flight 7500,” although it is also in the horror genre and shares thematic and stylistic similarities with Shimizu’s “Grudge” stories.
It is rare for me to find a director whose work never misses (at least in my opinion), but Shimizu seems to have that distinction. (I have not seen his critically maligned 2014 remake of the animated movie “Kiki’s Delivery Service.”) His movies work on three important levels:
(1) They include well-crafted scares that rely on creepy imagery, disturbing visuals and carefully building atmosphere and suspense. While I love a good gorefest as much as the next horror aficionado, Shimizu is deft at applying the “less is more” adage.
(2) They toy with conventional, linear storytelling methods in clever ways.
(3) They are about more than just scaring you.
Points #2 and #3 deserve further elaboration. While “The Grudge” series has numerous characters and subplots, all of them trace back to a single source — the moment when Kayako Saeki (Takako Fuji) becomes smitten with college professor Peter Kirk (Bill Pullman) and her husband Takeo (Takashi Matsuyama) discovers the diary in which she expresses those feelings. Infuriated by her perceived infidelity, Takeo brutally murders Kayako, their son Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) and his son’s pet cat Mar. Because they die in a state of terrible rage and sorrow, they return as ghastly spectres — pale white, with Kayako communicating through croaking sounds and Toshio screeching like a cat — to first kill Takeo and, after him, anyone else who enters the house where they died.
I suppose this premise makes “The Grudge” a haunted house series at its core, but the evil caused by Takeo’s wrathful homicides spans far beyond the premises of that single building. The murder has ripple effects, like a stone dropped into a pond, touching the lives of everyone from exchange student Karen Davis (Sarah Michelle Gellar), businessman Matt Williams (William Mapother), Detective Nakagawa (Ryo Ishibashi) and many others. Their experiences are organized by emotional theme, which means the story isn’t told in chronological order. This is an effective dramatic choice, as it forces the viewers to focus on the impact of trauma and rage — as well as the creepiness of the tone and visuals — rather than simply keeping up with the plot.
The only serious flaw in “The Grudge” is the fact that so many major characters are white Americans, even though the story is set in Japan. While I don’t believe Shimizu intended for this to be racist, it drags down the film both by being unrealistic (there are an awful lot of white Americans in these positions of power in Japan) and somehow condescending. American audiences can identify with Japanese characters; they don’t need an oddly large number of Yankees in there for the movie to work.
That detail aside, however, “The Grudge” is one of those movies that seemed destined to be iconic as soon as it was released. From its unique storytelling method to the utter creepiness of Toshio, it’s unforgettable.