The Grudge 3

In Chicago, the grudge curse, resulting from Takeo's murder of his wife, Kayako, and son, Toshio (and eventual suicide afterward), continues to spread through an apartment building (and anyone in contact with those cursed by what was brought from Tokyo to it). Will Kayako's sister, Naoko, who has the ability to exorcise the curse, be able to convince inhabitants of the apartment building to help her stop it in its tracks?
**

To keep the spirit of the first two films alive, we get the opening credits re-establishing the back story and roots of the grudge and why it still continues to inflict its poison clear across the world into Chicago.

We are introduced a wannabe fashion designer, Lisa (Johanna Braddy) and her model beau (Beau Mirchoff), forming a partnership hoping her designs will take off once he works them in a potential show. Their sights are set on NYC, with Lisa granted an internship there. What sucks is that they are all warm and cozy in the Chicago apartment containing the grudge curse. Lisa lives with her big bro, Max and cute, asthmatic sis, Rose (Jadie Hobson). Max is in charge of operations (and to keep tenants coming, content, and happy) in the apartment complex and since the previous violence from that last film, he can’t keep occupants in the building any more. It is a pain because how can you run an apartment complex without occupants renting rooms? Yeah, the curse’s reputation isn’t good for business. It sure isn’t good for your well being.

Well, Max is suffering through this crisis with a lot of pressure bearing down on him due to those who own the building, wondering if a management company would be required to help improve tenant occupation instead of tenant exodus. We see that a mother and her daughter (who knew the curse-victimized family from the previous film) can leave the building but not the grudge behind. The girl has her bath water ready by mother, off unpacking some clothes, and a white hand reaches from the pouring water to grab her arm. Pulled in, we get glimpses of the grudge’s whole reason of existence, an enraged husband drowning a child (now the girl takes the place of his son), and soon the girl is gone. This “death scene” is closer to what happened in the Grudge movies from previous, because the grudge ghouls come and drag away a victim to “the void”.  I guess, in essence, the grudge curse “envelopes” human lives/souls. This curse is quite a disease with no end in sight if the source isn’t quelled.

Dr. Sullivan is our exposition. She tells Lisa that Jake told her that a tenant in the Chicago building, Allison (the one who was in Tokyo school that visited the cursed home), has “brought something dark back home with her”. Sullivan fills in Lisa on Jake’s mysterious demise, and she is responsible for further reintroducing the plot of the first two films, linking their stories to the current third film’s story.

There are some details that establish a great deal of drama that has befallen the trio in this film, besides the apartment building’s lack of tenants and grudge curse build, such as the animosity Max has against Lisa for leaving as Rose appears to be getting worse health-wise, as well as, the accumulating bills because of Rose’s condition with her shitty lungs and respiration. It is at least some effort at fleshing out the characters, but what matters most to the viewers, I assume, is when Kayako and Toshio will decide to pop up and scare the hell out of people not expecting them. Sirtis is given a few lines, is shown as a painter by her apartment’s portraits, canvas, and paints, and then is subsequently “put to rest” when Kayako shows up to give Max one more vacancy in the building. Toshio’s presence is often talked about by Rose, and eventually he’s seen by Lisa. Mr. Potato Head is used as a toy that further illustrates Toshio’s presence in the building. I like how Toshio is used in correlation with Rose, particularly when rubbing her head when Lisa leaves the room. Dr. Sullivan is brought into this whole ordeal just because of her patient. Being assigned to Jake was rather a stroke of rotten luck that would bring Kayako right into her place of employment; she shares time with Lisa, as does, Naoko, both providing incentive that all is not right in that Chicago apartment complex.

Naoko is important to the plot because she has a scene in Tokyo, and bridges the two cities of the film. She seems to be the hero who can put an end to all of this horror, but the irony of how she will help to do just that only to contribute (unwillingly and unintentionally) to another grudge curse does give this film some brownie points. Her fate is rather unpleasant. Takeo hasn’t stopped killing. To show his strong will is when we see Max pop his neck a bit when on the warpath.

While thematically, The Grudge 3 doesn’t invent the wheel or try to go in directions that might recharge the battery of the franchise, it is handsomely photographed by Anton Bakarski(the blu-ray release I watched had nice visual and audio quality, something I do appreciate), having been cinematographer on many syfy channel Saturday night creature features, and has some fun horror set pieces associated with these kinds of onryo movies so popular at the time (or right before 2009). That’s at least something those involved in the making of this sequel can hang their hat on. I can’t say it will last in memory with me for any long period—rather forgettable and hasn’t much in the way of performance or story/character content that will probably remain on the brain for too long—or come up in conversation when talking shop regarding the horror genre. It is very much “made for dvd”; there’s a home, though, for these kinds of “shelf filler” (or maybe, the new correct term is “Netflix list filler”).

I will say that I personally do like how the apartment, basically occupant-free, is used as a playground for Kayako and Toshio. Stairs, halls, floors, light bulbs, windows, doors, and corners can all be used as devices which offer potential for the specters to emerge at any moment or declare their presence known. I have always liked to be led to the water yet not know if it is a watering hole or mirage. Of course, the filmmakers can’t resist loud sound effects to announce Kayako and Toshio. It’s a given that where a face of white with eyes that bulge, peering out even the smallest door window will have a loud jump scare announcement to introduce it.

The kid from the previous Grudge sequel.

They tie in the second and third film with this kid who watched the occupants of the Chicago apartment complex fall under the grudge curse, plus this allows for The Grudge 3 to localize itself in America and away from Japan.

I was immediately struck by how the excessive violence (something that doesn’t typically bother me in the slightest) left me rather taken aback because usually the Grudge movies are more about creeps than gore. Sure a mangled face or bodies falling in a supposed suicidal leap from tall buildings were part of these movies, but I always felt that the specters took their victims off to “the great void” (okay, so I don’t have a clue exactly where victims are taken to, but the whole point is that you can’t escape from the grudge curse and eventually it gets you, resulting in a vanishing) instead of brutalizing them like the kid in the padded cell at the opening of The Grudge 3. Now the setting is Chicago, thus removing the international flavor of the first two films. In the past, the opening would have had the curse “poof” away the kid in the cell. He’d be seen on the security monitor (a camera in the cell recording the patient trapped inside) crying aloud for help, our mother and son would be highlighted in some technical razzle dazzle, and then take their victim off to the “place that cannot be seen”. In this case, the poor kid gets bounced around the cell like a pinball, with his doc and security guard find his body all bent out of shape (literally) and broken. The grudge curse, in this film, will smack you around real good. Just ask the kid.

I join the chorus booing the casting of Toshio, but thankfully he’s briefly shown in full figure form once and most of the time his figure is present in a blur of bluish white, sending off the customary (now so much a source of lampoonery) cat shriek. Looking nothing like Toshio (looking too American and much older, it is embarrassing casting). Again, thankfully he’s briefly shown much to my delight, for sure.

The Grudge movies work in a way that is akin to the slasher film. A victim has his/her attention diverted on something typical of their daily routine. In the case of The Grudge 3, Marina Sirtis (as Gretchen), is an artist who sometimes babysat Rose. She is just painting a portrait, it (and another hanging on the wall) destroyed by Kayako (who actually exits a portrait of an old man after his face and eyes “bleed” hair!), before the specter turns her attention to Sirtis. Sirtis wears the appropriate reaction of building terror until she’s in a heap on the floor, cornered and on the verge of succumbing to grudge curse. Then it’s “move to the next set piece”. It is expected and carried out. She was one of the loyal occupants who stayed and suffered for such loyalty. Despite my rather disappointment in Toshio, I do think Kayako was used (she's at least favorable to the Kayako used previously) effectively well.

I guess when it comes to horror, actors have to get that Jack Torrence role off their chest. In The Grudge 3, actor Gil McKinney summons the spirit of Torrence when the spirit of Takeo takes him over, and he starts swearing and getting hot under the collar, a temper that boils, and a rage ready to uncoil. It does soon erupt when Takeo spurns Max to viciously attack Naoko with a pipe and cutting tool from his toolbelt (renovations). It is a nasty bit of business that leaves Max in emotional duress, stuck with the burden of knowing his bloody hands were responsible for a heinous murder he was unable to stop.

 

One thing this film does do is put an end to one curse only to create a brand new one, further prying the series away from the franchise's Tokyo environs, and transplanting the Grudge further into American soil (although, The Grudge 2 never indicated that the curse in Tokyo had ceased...). Still, there's no reason to believe there couldn't be multiple more sequels down the road. Hell, Puppetmaster movies have reached something like 9 with no let up in sight it seems.