The Grudge (2020)

Writer-Director Nicolas Pesce's entry into the increasingly massive GRUDGE movie universe gets a Digital, Blu-ray and DVD release from Sony.

Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough), new in town with her young son and still recovering from the death of her husband, finds herself investigating a body found in a burned out car in the woods. The trail leads back to a nearby house that has a tragic history, one that has led to multiple deaths and mutilations, including one of the detectives (William Sadler) who worked on a previous case. As she digs deeper into the mystery, it turns out the deaths began when Fiona Landers (Tara Westwood) returned from a trip to Japan.

THE GRUDGE is a strange beast. There are some beautifully composed shots, some good acting (and some not so good - step forward mumbly grunting policeman Demian Bechir - thank goodness for subtitles) and some decent shock bits (a few quite gory for the film's 15 certificate. 

But.... it just doesn't all hang together. In fact if I was being uncharitable I'd say it doesn't work at all. So bad is it at points you'd swear Akiva Goldsman (RINGS, THE DARK TOWER et al ad very much nauseam) was involved. And that's a shame because once you get to the extras you realise how much thought has been put into this.

There are twelve GRUDGE films prior to this one, and anyone can be forgiven for not knowing their exact chronology, so here we go. First of all there are four Japanese films:

JU-ON: THE CURSE (2000)

JU-ON: THE CURSE 2 (2000)

JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2002)

JU-ON: THE GRUDGE 2 (2003)

Then come the American ones:

THE GRUDGE (2004)

THE GRUDGE 2 (2006)

THE GRUDGE 3 (2009)

Then some more from Japan:

JU-ON: BLACK GHOST (2009)

JU-ON: WHITE GHOST (2009)

JU-ON: THE BEGINNING OF THE END (2014)

JU-ON: THE FINAL CURSE (2014)

SADAKO VS KAYAKO (2016)

I've gone through all that because Nicolas Pesce obviously has, and the graphic novels as well. His new THE GRUDGE is packed with references to all the above, and if you're not 100% up on JU-ON don't worry, because one of the extras on here is a handy Easter Egg Haunt where Mr Pesce goes through some of them for you. This is one of three featurettes, the other two being 'Cast of the Cursed' and 'Designing Death'. There's no commentary track but you do get over thirty minutes of deleted scenes.

Nicolas Pesce's THE GRUDGE is out from Sony on Digital on Monday 18th May 2020 and on Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 1st June 2020