Day 28 The Grudge and The Grudge 2

This will be a review of sanity, odd storytelling, and the American remakes. Too many people stroke the originals and after having seen both, the remakes are better. Fight me on it if you wish, it’s just my subjective opinion.

I wasn’t a big fan of the films originally. It took some time.  Mostly because the first time I saw this I was 23 and it genuinely did have some scenes that got under my skin and I both loved and hated it for that. But the way it tells the story was a bit odd. So I sought out the original and its sequel, once I watched those I found it made even less sense in storytelling but still worked for me. Just wasn’t as scary as the remake back in 2003. Sam Raimi has a way of helping that in his horror, as does the films director.

What’s funny is I remember the big Japanese remake wave we had back in the early 2000’s. We had The Grudge, The Ring, The Eye. There were a lot of poorly done remakes but this one. Had love it seemed. Someone cared, pluss it got to me as I mentioned. So lets take our medicinal aid that helped people get through Phantasm and let’s dive into this one.

The Grudge(2003)

Our movie begins with an American teacher enjoying a fearful look over the balcony of his room out to the busy streets and docked boats. A calm silent morning, soon disturbed by the waking of his lady friend in bed. She’s looking rather chipper this morning and tries coaxing him back to bed. Unfortunately he’s made his mind up that he’d rather Yeet out of the room instead. So he stretches a bit and leans over the railing to throw himself down to the street below. Talk about a rude wakeup. The lady friend is shocked, horrified and now single.

That’s the end of his story, but we’ll get back into it soon enough.

For now lets center on the new girl! We’ll call her bicycle girl. Bicycle girl is traveling to a nice enough looking house to check up on the people within. It seems to be her job. Unless we want to say she’s breaking in. So she breaks into the house and discovers some odd noise. Which prompts her to go investigate and slide open a closet door. Which leads to an attic access. So she takes a gander in the attic space and WHOAAA!!! She’s attacked by a ghostly looking pale faced lady with long black hair and sucked up into the attic, body shaking and rocking as it goes.

So that’s the end of her story. But we’ll get into it soon enough.

Now here we go. Our main money maker and title card for the film. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So we find Buffy waking in her bed as boyfriend is searching for clean clothes. Which she directs him too. He also has a class final to rush off and take. But she informs him his watch is wrong and she set the clocks in the house an hour ahead. “You know me so well” he says, but for us, it’s either the work of a witch, or a very together mildly controlling know-it-all.

So the two have an hour to kill, 9 minutes likely spent making out, 2 minutes undressing and if they skipped the fourplay 8 minutes of pleasurable coupling. It’s time for him to take his final, and her to get to work!

Which apparently her work is the same as Bicycle girl. They are caregivers! So Bicycle girl WAS tending to a family, and not robbing them. She’s informed Bicycle girl did not make it in today to check on the family as she was intended to do. So they send Buffy in her place. Her boss is Joxer the Magnificent by the way.

She makes her way out to the house we saw Bicycle girl swallowed up into and discovers a very frightened and shook grandma. Whom she helps clean her dirty sheets, dress and cares for. But Granny ain’t talkin to anyone! More on that later as well.

As Buffy examines the house and cleans. She comes across a WTF scene. A room with a closet door covered in layers upon layers of tape. Which normally people would leave alone I imagine. But she does not. Not because she’s a nosey Nora. But because she hears a cat yowling and crying. So good on her for being worried for a cat! But alas those fears turn into holy bat shit!! She opens the door and finds an ominous book left behind, and indeed a cat! But. A cat being held by a pale looking boy! Both locked away in a taped up closet! Someone is going to hear about this!

Buffy, being a good house care person. Calls her boss to inform him of her discovery. She begins exploring the house a bit more and stumbled on a picture of the boys family. We discover the boys name is Toshio. We discover it as he’s creepily staring at Buffy from upstairs and he tells her his name.

Mildly creeped out, Buffy returns to her care duties, remembering she has a rambling ol Granny to take care of. Who’s talking to herself and not at all well. But Buffy has the observational skills of a sloth. It takes her a moment before she sees a truly fun spooky reveal. As she’s tending to Granny, we see a dark spot and what looks to be a stain spreading and rooting through the corner of the ceiling across the walls. Soon manifesting into a long haired outline of a woman. THIS BUFFY SEE’S!! And she is crapping herself.

So that’s the end of her story. But we’ll get into it soon enough.

Now we get into a bit of backstory in the movie. We see the grannie looking healthier and more talkative, as her family explores the  house with a spooky girl in it. This was before they bought the place. Aside from a slight uneased feeling by a few. The house seems fine. Until we get a red flag from the real estate agent showing the house. See they noticed the bath tub was full of dirty water. Which grumbles them, but they came there with their big boy pants on and roll up their sleeves to unclog this mess. When they do though, a pair of children’s hands reach out of the bath tub and hold his hand before letting go with a giggle and vanishing back into the tub. Freaking out the agent and pulling his hand out, not covered in black hair.

Does he freak out and scream for help? Does he bolt for the door screaming GET OUT GET OUT! Hell no! He hears the American man say “We’ll take it!” and smiles, happy to sell the house and move on.

This guy does a good job.

So American wife is adjusting to being a stranger in a strange land, not having bothered to learn the native language and a bit freaked because of it. Which I can understand. I mean I spent 3 months in France and only knew the barest of French. It was awkward, but people were very helpful thankfully.

However I wasn’t in a grudge infested house, or talking to French ghost.

So American house wife makes her way upstairs, following the mews of a cat, a cat we saw earlier with the boy. As she follows the cat to a bedroom, the door suddenly shoots closed and. We’ll get back to that soon.

For now. American husband has come home from work. He discovers the house a mess. Paper and food tossed around. His mom looking scared out of her mind. He seeks out his wife for answers on A. Why the house is a mess, and B. Where’s his dinner.

He discovers her in their bedroom. Staring up at the ceiling panting for breath and looking like she’s trying to scream but she can’t. It’s actually pretty damn scary. American husband also comes to find in this room, Toshiro. Who is content not to talk to him but instead meow like a cat. That’s all he does. Meows and hisses, and says his name.

It’s altogether scary and a quick bunch of scenes.

We now move forward back to our time. Joxer the magnificent has now come to this cursed home, looking for both Bicycle girl, and his employee Buffy. What he finds instead is a scared Granny, and a corner hugging pissing herself insane Buffy.

Thankfully this is not ignored and the police are contacted to begin an investigation.

Through this investigation we learn the names of the family. When they arrived and how long since. Which isn’t entirely important.

What IS however is that the police are solving shit! Like the mystery of ‘where is the house phone?!’, Meanwhile Buffy is taken to a hospital. Concerned boyfriend informs her that Granny died in the house, and this makes her sad.

IT DOESN’T MATTER!! Because we’ve reached one of the scarier goddamn parts of this movie. American husband’s sister calls the family to see how they’re doing, as she’s concerned for their mother. As she’s leaving her empty office building. She begins getting this sense that she’s not alone, and feels a weirdness that tells her she’s being followed. So she heads off for the stairs to get out without being seen. As she does so, her cellphone begins to ring. Ah it’s her brother returning her call! As she answers and begins talking. We don’t hear her brother. Instead we hear the films signature, still creepy today throat noises. A gurgling instead of speaking sound. Growing louder and louder until she shuts the phone off. Then the sound resonates through the stairwall and when she goes to look down. She sees the pale bodied long black haired ghost girl climbing her way up the stairs to her! She barely manages to make it out of the stairway access back into her works main hallway without the ghost greeting her. She wisely contacts security and informs them of a strange woman lurking in the halls. They go to investigate and she watches the security video feed. As she does, she notices a flickering of lights in the hallway, and soon. A shadow figure growing from one dark corner of the hallway. That’s enough to send her off and running on the GTFO express! She makes it to her home safely, thankful for familiar surroundings. She rides the elevator up, which if you’re watching closely. You can make out Toshiro standing outside each of the floors she passes on her way up. Getting closer, and closer to the door until he face is pressed right up against it. But thankfully he believes in personal space and she is allowed to enter her apartment without issue. She hears her phone ring, Not about to fall for the same throat sounds she got before! She waits until the machine picks it up and. Hey! It’s her brother! Asking her to buzz him in so he can come up and see her. So she does, and immediately regrets it. Seeing him standing at her doorway she opens it up and…he’s gone. Her phone still not hung up, she hears those familiar throat noises again and drops the phone, slams and locks the door, resorting back to childhood fear and running for her bed pulling the covers up over herself. That only works for a moment before she discovers the keychain the ghost tore off her keys in the hall at work, and when she gets yanked by her feet under the covers, and a form starts taking shape under the blanket. Yeah. She’s gone.

This was some scary shit back then! It still gets me even though I know it’s coming. So let that say something.

The main curse of this house, and how it plays out as we learn. Anyone who steps foot in that house, becomes a target for this curse. No one is getting out of this alive.

Buffy is free of the hospital and wants to go home, get naked and forget about all of this. Yes some spooky stuff happens but we’re going to skip that because there’s another really great out of the what the fuck am I seeing archive. Joxer the great, while readying to close up shop and head home. Ends up running into a very out of it, stumbling around Bicycle girl. She doesn’t respond to him. Only shuffles past him down a stairway. It isn’t until he notices she’s tracking what he believes to be water into the building, but he discovers to be blood. That she actually stops. Turns around, and he quickly regrets having tried contacting her as she looks up to him. Screams in absolute terror, as we see for all of 1.5 memorable quick seconds. Bicycle girl with her jaw ripped off and tongue lolling out of her mouth. Good luck getting that out of your heads anytime soon after seeing it.

But the film doesn’t want you to think that’s the end, Oh no. It has more ways to tare the hairs off your sacks. We return to the detective as he reviews the security camera feed from American husband’s sister’s work. Which ALSO just has to up the creepiness as We witness ghost girl materialize from the shadows of the hall, and suddenly stalk the detective by creeping closer and closer to the camera until her long haired ghost face fills the lens.

But enough about present day affairs. Lets get into some other stuff yeah? So Buffy is investigating and sharpening her stakes for a hunt. She discovers the professor who jumped off his balcony and goes to interview his wife. Who lets Buffy in as she helps herself to a few photos of him. Soon discovering in the background of all these photos, was a Japanese girl. Somehow always there, and always lurking. Yandare much?

So it’s time for a flashback. This time of Mr Balcony.

So Mr. Balcony received his mail and found a few more letters from a strange girl he’d been receiving. So he decides to go visit the house as the person writing them told him where to go. He apparently found her home, and discovered. Well. We’ll say some odd photography habits, and a diary she kept, going over her deep love for the teacher. Obsessively deep love. She collected his hair, finger nails, photos. All that was missing were urine and blood samples. He also, while exploring comes to discover just what he’s wondered into. A murder suicide house. Freaky things begin happening, like seeing the ghost of Toshiro, and the body of Kayako. Which her husband left in their attic space.

It would seem her husband was very controlling and jealous. He stumbled upon her diary and went on a murder spree. Choking out his wife, drowning their son, and even being a true bastard, killing their cat. Before hanging himself.

It’s time for our final act and it’s a good one. We have our detective attempting to burn down the house. But Toshiro and Kayako say Nah we wanna keep spookin. So he’s now sadly no more. Buffy hears her theme play and knows it’s time to get to work. She’s ready to fight until she see’s Kayako spiderwalk down some stairs as creepily as she can. Then she decides fuck it it ain’t worth it. Especially when her damn boyfriend came into the house and she has to drag his ass around. Well fortunately all is not entirely lost. She manages to say F you ghost! F this house! I’m outta here!. The house is set ablaze and she’s out to the hospital. Which is a good safe space. Until it isn’t because of COURSE the ghost ain’t happy and NEVER will be happy! Roll those credits!

It’s a good move! It’s still somehow scary and creepy. I mean like I said, I saw this when I was 23 when it came out, and the thing still creeps me out. So obviously something there worked right? The effects don’t look out of place, and I take it as a good sign when a film from that era can still hold up today. I’ve managed in the past 3 months we’ll say to show it to a few friends and they all were creeped out big time by it. So the films hold up. As long as we ignore part 3. Which I do. Happily.

However I can never forget part 2. For a few reasons.

It was my first ‘let’s go to the movies with your coworkers’ experience. Me and my ex, two guys I worked with and their girlfriends all went to see the sequel in theaters. It was a fun experience. It was creepy and I scared a boy to the point I hope he pissed himself.

We were sat behind this kid and his brother, he only got in because his brother was old enough to get him in. This kid was scared out of his mind and it showed. So being a ballsy prick that I was back then. I leaned forward at the end and did a few throat groans like the movie, which I still do on occasion to fuck with people, and it made him jump. But then laugh so. Not all was harmful.

If it helps someone managed to change my ringtone on my cellphone to the grudge throat noise and it freaked me out hearing that at 2am in bed.

SO LETS GET TO IT ALREADY!!

Grudge 2!! 2Grudge2spoopy

We begin our tail as all these classic film stories show. We see a woman in a very unhappy state destroying some bacon in a skillet. I mean she fried the life out of that pork and someone should give last rites to that bacon. She serves it up to a very pissed off husband. Accusing her of a few things, and worst of all, telling her she destroyed the bacon. Which gives us a real life scare a few of us hissed at and still do because we know it’d hurt like hell. Those are the worst scares. The wife takes the pan she was destroying this bacon in, pores the hot grease over her husbands head then slams the pan down hard on him. She then calmly sits down and eats the shitty bacon.

That’s where her story ends, but we’ll get back to that soon.

Now we meet Meangirls. A skinny tall blonde, her Japanese coolbeans friend, and what 2000 considered chubby white girl. Skinny bitch and Coolbeans are a bit of asses to chubs. They bring her into the cursed remains of the kayako house. Because of course that’s a good idea.

Which it proves to be just that. Skinny bitch and Coolbeans shove her into the closet Kayako was discovered in and hold it closed. Finding it incredibly funny and decide to finally free the adequately scared Chubs to take a picture of her. Instead they find the door is sealed and hear a thudding body moving above them. Chubs is freaking the fuck out because the attic door above her opens and out come spools of dark hair and a pale ghost faced Kayako. As well as meow boy. All three girls run off terrified.

That’s where their story ends, but we’ll get back to that soon.

We find ourselves in Freedom land, America!

This happens to be the family of Buffy. So this films events are taking place right after the first film. A sickly mother informs her daughter that she is sending her off to Japan to check on Buffy. Which is wonderful. Because the mom belittles her for not wanting to go to Japan to bring back her sister and stop her from facing charges for trying to burn down a house.

Which we can all understand having been there, I am sure.

Well on her trip to the hospital, we learn she and her sister had not talked in a long while, we also learn she can’t speak Japanese what so ever. But thankfully there’s a nice photographer who speaks English and wants to help her. So she’s able to find her sister and Buffy actually makes her cameo in the film.

Spoilers Buffy wasn’t given top billing, so she’s only in it for a short time.

The sisters embrace, and try to make sense of everything that happened. Before she’s able to do so, the doctors and police restrain buffy and sister is whisked away by police back to the waiting room.

Well this is all very upsetting for her, so she decides she needs some space. Meanwhile Buffy is attacked in the hospital by Kayako. Who ends up chasing her around and onto a rooftop. Buffy watching the clock finds she only has another minute left until the check clears. So Kayako tosses her from a roof, just in time for Sister to see it happen as Mr Photographer is escorting her out.

The pair not only see a none exploded body of Buffy, but they also see Kayako. Meaning they too are now likely cursed.

That’s where their story ends, but we’ll get back to that soon.

For now, now is the time we travel back in time and find the family from the first scene in this movie. The mother not crazy out of her mind, and the dad much happier and not burned by grease. There’s Cooking Mama, Working Dad, The Odd son, and Sister Christian.

They all seem pretty normal, and even eat pizza like normal Americans. So the question becomes, how is an American family, in America, being effected by this curse in Japan?

Well we will soon find out I assure you because. Well.

That’s where their story ends, but we’ll get back to that soon enough.

We have another flashback to visit now. It’s time to discover what’s become of Chubs, Coolbeans, and Skinny Bitch. Well Chubs is being haunted by nuzzling ghost cats in class, as are Coolbeans and Skinny Bitch. But the trio try to act natural. Until we enter the most wonderous of wonderlands.

The girls locker room! Where girls are in panties and bras! With their stuff all hanging out and not covered by clothes! Hell they even shower! Which their showers are far and away a hell of a lot better than the ones our school had.

So first on the chopping block, and a fun scene to begin with?

Skinny Bitch.

Skinny Bitch is busy showering and thinking about stuf. When she realizes she’s pulling out clumps of black hair. Which are not her own. So it mildly scares her. But she’s moving past it. What isn’t so easy to forget, and unsee. IS a genuinely well placed scare of a hanging shirt and hoody in a corner closet. Which sort of looks like hair and a dress. It eventually BECOMES hair and a dress, with legs! Which causes Skinny Bitch to piss herself. Yeah, she’s that scared. She runs out of their presumably in the nude. But also hopefully alive, and smelling of urine.

But as for Coolbeans?

Coolbeans is with her American boyfriend and, the pair have decided it’s time to cash in their V cards. So they rent out a lovely bed in a very cool hotel. Meant for the sexiness. It has a nice mirror on the headboard, which allows for a view right into the shower. Which her boyfriend is using. She’s not all that sure now about losing her virginity and is having second thoughts. Which I mean, give her credit, she has that right to be and shouldn’t rush into something she’s not ready for.

Seeing her naked boyfriend in the shower she gets super shy and hides herself under the blanket. Hearing the shower door open she waits for her boyfriend to say something. Instead he begins rubbing her feet and legs which tickles her. She tells us it does and scoots up in bed. Which thanks to the well placed mirror, we are able to make out that. He is still in the shower, and she has no idea who is rubbing her legs. Just as she begins to freak out and pull back up to the headboard. Kayako appears from the headboard mirror and yanks Coolbeans into the mirror with her.

That’s where the story ends for now, but we’ll get back to that later.

Noticing a trend yet?

So back to sister of Buffy. She returns to her hotel room, to crumble into a heap on the carpet and realize she has to call her mother to let her know what’s happened, its sad and you feel for her. It’s not something fun to do, honestly. So she decides to have a good cry and sleep on it for now.

Meanwhile photographer man is reviewing interview tapes with the detective from part 1. He’s discussing the murders and the people who vanished that went into the house. While reviewing the film, and thanks to playing back tape in slow motion. He’s able to freeze frame on a hidden image of Kayako on the tape. Which freaks him out enough to end the tape. Only freaking him out further as he sees a reflection of Kayako on his blank screen!

So obviously he needs to pair up with Sister to uncover what happened and why.

And of course this is the worse idea in a long list of bad ideas.

But enough about that. Let’s go back in time back to America to the perfectly normal family. Odd Son is wondering around, being odd, and decides to follow an odd girl in their apartment building who roams around mumbling in a hoodie, collecting newspaper clippings. It’s a bit odd, but a boy needs a hobby. So his is stalking neighbors.

But we don’t need to follow him anymore so. Yeah you get it. On to the next flash-flashback.

Back to Chubs! She’s called Skinny Bitch into a meeting with a psychologist….counselor…person. And has told her about what’s been going on, and how Coolbeans and Skinny Bitch tricked her. Skinny Bitch isn’t happy with this and soon is left on her own as the other two take off to talk further about some private matters, as they’re trying to figure out where Coolbeans is since no one has heard from her.

This is of course the perfect setup for Skinny Bitch to piss herself in fear again. As she’s texting Coolbeans asking where she is, and gets a call from yowling cat boy. She hides under the ladies office desk only to be surprised by the smelly feet of none other than Toshiro. She says fuck this shit and bolts out the office running down the street for a phonebooth. But she DOESN’T call 911. She doesn’t cry out for help. She instead decides to call Coolbeans, who had just called her not 3 minutes ago yowling like a cat. But unfortunately for Skinny Bitch. Catboy and Kayako have her now and she’s sucked up in a river of hair inside the phonebooth.

I feel like now would be a good time to tell anyone reading this, that there are a few timelines in this movie

We have the three schoolgirls, now down to just chubs.

We have photography boy and Sister

The American family from the beginning

The schoolgirls story is happening after or around Sister and Photography Boy, where the American family story is taking place in the both the past and present. But after the first two timelines.

Make sense? Who cares! Moving on!

So sister and Photography Boy are investigating Kayako and the curse on the house. Which Buffy warned her not to go near the house SO OF COURSE SHE GOES IN! The two are officially on Kayako’s shitlist now.

But they were able to grab her diary from the house and uncover some backstory on Kayako’s youth and why she was so troubled.

Apparently her mother was a village shaman of sorts. She would take evil spirits from people possessed or haunted, then feed the evil spirits into her daughter. Making her a vessel of sorts. So our heroes have a quest. Find Kayako’s mother and try to see if they can resolve this curse and thus save people from dying.

Will it work? Well since there was a Grudge 3, and a follow up of the girl from the Ring movies fighting Kayako. Likely not. But let’s pretend we hope they’ll succeed.

So it should be noted that, even though these two are working together under dire circumstances and during very deep hardships. They’d actually make a pretty cute couple.

Unfortunately Photography boy has to die. He took pictures of Kayako’s house without her express permission. So she pops up in his photo lab he runs out of his apartment, and lays hands on him. Killing him, leaving a body staring up in utter fear and terror, just so poor sister can find her maybe but no longer dating option. It’s also a creepy cool moment as you see photos of dark scenes, and spooky ghost face pictures of Kayako staring back at her as she exits the room in terror.

So here we go back on a time leap! Back to American family where Cooking Mama answers the door for her daughter, sporting her new cheerleading outfit, only to have Cooking mama acting weird and. If I can write this out correctly. Downs half a gallon of milk. Then begins upchucking it all back up to fill the container. The daughter things nothing of this and heads off to her brothers room. Only to find him hiding in a closet terrified to leave it. Because he heard their parents fighting and it scared him.

So it’s a good time as any for sister cuddles until he feels safe enough to come out and lay in his bed.

Which doesn’t help as he’s soon awoken by loud thudding on the wall separating his room from odd girl down the halls room. SO HE GOES TO INVESTIGATE.

Just let yourself in why don’t you. This is Freedom Land U.S.A. You can enter anyone’s home apparently whenever you want!

So of course he must pay for this. He finds hoodie odd girl desperately trying to cover her windows in news paper clippings to keep out the outside world from looking in. This weird him out of course. But more so, scares his nuts off when he sees ghost people staring at him through the few exposed pieces of glass not yet covered. Sending him flying back to HIS home, back to the comfort of his sister.

But that’s where HIS story ends. Now we get caught up on current events. Cooking mama is having conversations the rest of us can’t hear. With Toshiro and Kayako. Her husband wakes in a rage, because he can’t sleep and suspects his wife of cheating. We’ve been getting subtle plays on both sides here. Where The husband hears what he takes are his wife talking to other men, and the wife hears nothing but hate and controlling conversations from him. So this is what leads us to the opening scene of bacon grease used as hair care.

But that’s where their story ends for now, and we’ll get back to that soon.

We have another story to get into now. Chubs!!

Which is pretty damn creepy actually.

Chubs gets called in by her counselor lady…person. Anyway she gets called in to discuss things. She informs the lady she doesn’t know where her friends are but she suspects they’ve all been attacked. The lady informs her that there is nothing to worry about. She went to the ghost house and found nothing of what she described there. Which worries Chubs immediately. Trying to tell her she’s now in danger too! But she assures her no one is really in danger. She also informs chubs that Skinny Bitch and Coolbeans are right there with her, and totes for real fine.

To which we then are greeted to ghost form Skinny Bitch and Coolbeans. But the truly creepy thing is finding that counselor lady also was a ghost and begins making a very super creepy version of her own throat groan.

And thus ends the story of chubs. For now.

Meanwhile Sister has a mission to finish. She is off to the village Kayako’s mother lives in. Getting more backstory to unleash upon us. Explaining that her daughter was a powerful being indeed, but it was her crazy husband that corrupted her and made her what she now is. Taking no responsibility for her actions. This upsets Kayako and she interjects this reunion and appears before her mother, killing her.

So here we are. Sister is alone, in a land she can’t speak the language of. A tral of bodies following her, and marking her for death as well.

She’s not going down without a fight though. She’s going to do her darndest to prove to herself and her mom that she isn’t just a failure compared to Buffy. She’s a try hard, and that’s what try hards do. They. Try. Hard! She FINALLY calls her mother, and tells her what’s happened to Buffy. She also informs her of her plans to end things. Her mother is super supportive of course. She ask what she did to do this, how she could let her sister die, blaming her for everything. But Sister is not having any of it. She tells her mom I love you, and to prepare a seat for her at the tables of Valhalla as she enters the Kayako house. Where she suffers abuse at the hands of the ghost husband who killed Kayako. Putting her literally in her shoes as she goes through everything she did. From being beaten, to having her neck snapped, giving her the signature throat groaning. Hearing Toshiro being drowned and the family cat as well. The last few things she sees, are the ghost of Kayako coming to her, not as a ghost. But as her human self. Still creepily though. And this, is how her story ends.

But let’s pause her story and return to the final battle of American Family. Team Odd Son and Sister Christian return to their home finding all the lights off. Their father and mother nowhere to be found. So they grabs their flashlights and play a real life round of Phasmophobia.

Odd Son is the first to discover their fathers dead corpse. Sending him screaming and seeking out his sister. Which he  finds with, her head in the bath tub. Giggling. Cooking mama in the tub herself telling Odd Son it’s time for his bath, smiling creepily at him while Toshiro’s hands grab Cooking mama and submerge her. Leaving his dead family behind, Odd Son runs out to the hallway, thinking of crying for help. But instead finds Hoodie girl hiding in the hallway crying out in both fear and loneliness.

So Odd Boy is sick of everything going on. He’s done with the death and dying, the haunting as family claiming. It’s then that We start hearing Hoodie girl talk about what happened. The grudge Curse, and what she saw. It wasn’t Kayako who she saw in the Grudge house. It was Sister! She saw her ghost. Even more surprising is that Hoodie girl was Chubs! Chubs escaped Japan and brought the curse back home with her! But Just as Odd boy is about to get mad at her and shake the shit out of Chubs for destroying his family and ruining bacon for everyone. We get a pretty nifty set of kills. Chubs freaks out and stares at Odd Boy and we soon learn why, as two ghost hands sneak up from within her hoodie and she vanishes! Taken finally by Sister grudge.

Then in an act of stupidity. For some reason Odd Son lifts up the hoodie that once held Chubs, and sure enough when he lifts her. Ghost arms form inside it and hold him captive, As Kayako pops out and claims him. But he is not the final victim.

In a scene saved for the unedited version. Mama bitch who sent Sister out to retrieve Buffy. Is sad for the loss of both her girls. And unpacks a box sent to her of her daughters belongings. Which oddly, somehow includes the hoodie we just saw not long ago. And sure enough. From the hoodie emerged Sister Grudge and she claims their mom. For being a bitch.

Well actually the mom was cursed the moment she picked up the cursed hoody and that’s why she was taken. But also because she’s a bitch!

I will acknowledge that when these movies came out. They were beaten up a bit in the reviews. Mostly from people comparing it to the original, and because horror was, and still is a touchy genre. Even when it’s good, it’s still bad. It has to be artfully done to be considered good. Few get the treatment and respect they deserve, that audiences gave An American Werewolf in London, and The Exorcist.

But these films have survived and still find their audience. People are still scared by them. As I said Sam Rami is a large reason for the films success. He knows horror and he definitely nailed it in the first one. The second one was mostly hated for the fact it didn’t have A. Buffy in it aside from a cameo. And more importantly B. No leading names like the first film.

Which is a valid point and one I both hate to support, but can understand.

The choice not to go with known actors can harm or help you. I prefer it most the time just because it’s nice seeing new faces break out and pull you into a story. But here it’s a bit of a double edge sword. Most horror benefits with nameless faces. But when you release horror in theaters, it definitely helps it. This movie the cast was. To be honest. Good for a dvd release. Serviceable for theatrical. You won’t likely remember many of them. But they did their jobs, the film was still scary, and it did all the things it needed too. It brought closure to Buffy, and carried on for the next chapter(which part 3 ignores mostly) it gave us more of a story to fill in he blanks on Kayako. We learned a bit more about the Grudge and how it works. It stands as an equal to the original and I’d recommend it along side my usuals.

The film can stand past my nostalgia filter too. Which again being the first outing film for me and friends from work it will always have that place for me. But it also had some pretty fun sneaky moments that stuck with me. Like the opening Columbia logo for the film flickering and slowly turning into Kayako. It was a real fun moment, and despite all the horror I’ve seen and absolute blood letting films. These two still get to me and I love that. It’s been years since I’ve seen either until the review and knowing I still have to prepare myself for scenes I know are coming up? That’s good stuf right there and a sign these truly deserve their spots as equal sequels.

So as always. Check them out!