The Grudge (2004) - Some scares lurk in Shimizu's flawed J-horror remake

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A terrified eye stares out from a deathly pale face behind pitch black hair on the simple poster for Takashi Shimizu's The Grudge

A man jumps to his death. An old tragedy concerning a boy, who killed his mother, seems to be the underlying cause. Now they haunt a home with a passion.

The Grudge is written by Stephen Susco (Red (2008)) and directed by Takashi Shimizu (Ten Nights of Dreams/Yume jû-ya (2006, segment)) who remakes his own Ju-on: The Curse/Ju-on (2000, video), which he had already remade once in Japan as Ju-on: The Grudge/Ju-on (2002)
The film is entertaining, and it has its scary moments and effects, such as the staircase and bathroom scenes. 
But Sarah Michelle Gellar's (All My Children (1993-11)) character is regrettably blank throughout the film, making the blond actress herself look inauspiciously ignorant in The Grudge. And the many Americans who flock Tokyo in the film seem strange. Overall The Grudge is a mediocre horror.

Watch a 2-minute scene from the film here

Cost: 10 mil. $
Box office: 187.2 mil. $
= Mega-hit (returned 18.72 times its cost)
[The Grudge premiered 12 October (Los Angeles) and runs 91 minutes. The enormous success of J-horror remake The Ring (2002) led to the greenlighting of The Grudge. Shooting took place from January - July 2004 in Tokyo, Japan. The film opened #1 to a 39.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week at #1 and one more week in the top 5 (#3), grossing 110.7 mil. $ (59.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 14.4 mil. $ (7.7 %) and Italy with 6.2 mil. $ (3.3 %). It was the first horror film to top the Halloween box office since House on Haunted Hill (1999). It made 9.24 mil. $ on the North-American home video market in its first week of release alone. Roger Ebert gave the film a 1/4 star review, translating to 3 notches lower than this one. Shimizu directed the first, much less successful sequel The Grudge 2 (2006), but not the next, The Grudge 3 (2009, video) or the moderately successful reboot The Grudge (2020). Shimizu returned with The Great Horror Family/Kaiki daikazoku (2004, TV-series) and theatrically with Reincarnation/Rinne (2005). Gellar returned in Southland Tales (2006). The Grudge is rotten at 39 % with a 5.11/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Grudge?