Movie Info
Movie Name: The Grudge 3
Studio: Stage 6 Films
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): May 12, 2009
MPAA Rating: R
Put me in the mental ward…please!!!
The Chicago apartment which housed Jake Kimble (Matthew Knight) is the site of evil. When the horror which began in Japan transfers to this apartment building, Naoko Kawamata (Emi Ikehata), the sister of Kayako Saeki (Aiko Horiuchi), realizes she must travel to America to try to stop the horror that her sister and mother started. When Jake is killed in his locked cell, his psychiatrist Dr. Francine Sullivan (Shawnee Smith) begins to investigate the horror. Meanwhile, the caretaker of the building Max (Gil McKinney), his sister Lisa (Johanna Braddy), and their younger ill sister Rose (Jadie Rose Hobson) have the horror latched on to them and only Naoko can help stop it before it destroys them.
Crap…I fell out of bed again…
Directed by Toby Wilkins (who helped direct the Tales of the Grudge shorts), The Grudge 3 was a straight-to-video release but did receive theatrical released in a few countries. Following The Grudge 2 in 2006, the movie was generally panned by critics.
The Grudge and The Grudge 2 both had a certain style to them, like it or hate it. The Grudge 3 dropped this non-linear format for a typical story telling style. It was probably necessary for the story in The Grudge 2, but it also caused the movie to lose the only thing that made The Grudge distinctive.
I’m more frightened that I’m going to be caught with a naked teenage boy in my car…
The movie is a direct continuation to the previous two films, and that is a good thing. If you didn’t see The Grudge or its sequel, jumping into this film probably wouldn’t work. The story is rather flat and since there is no puzzle involving the storytelling, and this takes away any of the fun. I just wish The Grudge 3 ended the story which seems to continue on-and-on.
The movie casted a lot of new actors for the movie’s leads. The movie does bring in The Blob and Saw veteran Shawnee Smith as a psychiatrist, and Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Marina Sirtis plays a resident of the apartment. Both Toshio and Kayako were recasted for the film. Aiko Horiuchi is fine as the creepy Kayako who seems to get more screen time in this movie, but instead of hiring a little kid to play Toshio, Shimba Tsuchiya seems like a young adult…which takes away his scariness and makes it seem more perverse having a kid runaround halfway naked.
Beam me up, beam me up, now!!!
The visuals just aren’t there in this version of The Grudge. With an R-Rating, I had hoped the movie would have been edgier and a bit more violent. There is more blood and horror, but the movie doesn’t do a very good job justifying it or utilizing it.
The Grudge 3 is more of a chore than fun. Hopes that the series would end are dashed by an ending which has two “grudges” unleashed (Kayako is now in possession of Rose), and Max has unleashed another spirit by the murder of Naoko while possessed. The movie also has one of those frustrating endings that wrecks a seemingly nice family instead of saving them…something that bugs me as a viewer if it has no justification. As of now, The Grudge seems to be over…but the hate still lingers.
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