The Grudge Review: 2 Ups & 8 Downs
A traditional January dumpster fire.
Though January is a traditionally torrid month for new movie releases, 2020 has actually been surprisingly solid so far.
In addition to awards season straggler 1917 blowing us all away, Guy Ritchie's new gangster film The Gentlemen and Bad Boys for Life were both unexpectedly enjoyable romps.
But with The Grudge now out in UK cinemas, we're back in more typically tawdry territory for the "dump month" of January, because this horror franchise reboot nobody asked for is precisely as listless and lazy as its early US reviews implied.
It's not unexpected, though disappointing all the same given the involvement of not only a massively talented cast, but also promising rising director Nicolas Pesce, whose 2016 directorial debut The Eyes of My Mother went down quite the storm on the art-house circuit.
But The Grudge 2020 couldn't feel more opposite: a generic, soulless, predictable horror dud created only to shock a dormant franchise back to life, though given its disappointing box office performance, it seemingly couldn't even manage that...