Director Takashi Shimizu’s film, “The Grudge 2,” is ranked at No. 1 in the box offices and brought in over $20.82 million. However, it received terrible reviews from critics due to the lack of story-line and repetition.
You know in horror films when the creepy music tries to prepare you for when something on-screen unexpectedly emerges into sight, causing the audience to leap from their seats. “The Grudge 2” is full of those moments. Practically every scene in the movie has you on edge.
However, what the movie lacks is a plot.
The sequel picks up right where “The Grudge” left off, with Karen, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, in the hospital. The previews lead you to believe that the movie will continue to follow same story-line as the original, but then things suddenly become very confusing.
The sequel introduces many new characters and shifts the story-line so far that it creates a confusing jumble of events that is hard to follow.
“The Grudge,” released in 2004, showed us that anyone who entered the house in Japan would be haunted by the curse and will eventually die. However, in “The Grudge 2” the curse seems to be haunting anyone it pleases, not just the people who enter the house.
This particular grudge then pulls Karen’s sister, Aubrey, played by Amber Tamblyn, into the picture. Aubrey flies to Tokyo to be with her troubled sister without really knowing what has happened to her.
Aubrey teams up with a reporter to find out what has happened to Karen and they end up searching the haunted house for answers.
Then, three simple-minded high school students are introduced and enter the house as a joke.
Also, a family in Chicago is somehow linked to the curse out of nowhere. they never really say why though.
Soon enough, the white-faced ghosts are haunting Aubrey and the others throughout the entire movie.
Many of the ghostly hauntings in “The Grudge 2” are similar to those is in original, making the film somewhat boring to watch. This sequel, sad enough, is even more confusing than the first.
And as if the first one didn’t leave you hanging at the end, you are almost promised after the sequel that you can look forward to seeing previews for “The Grudge 3.”