Editorials
[Horror Queers] Lost and Isolated as a Queer Metaphor in ‘The Grudge’ (2004)
Each month in Horror Queers, Joe and Trace tackle a horror film with LGBTQ+ themes, a high camp quotient or both. For lifelong queer horror fans like us, there’s as much value in serious discussions about representation as there is in reading a ridiculously silly/fun horror film with a YAS KWEEN mentality. Just know that at no point will we be getting Babashook.
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***SPOILERS for The Grudge to follow.***
Synopsis: Karen Davis (Sarah Michelle Gellar), an American nurse living and working in Tokyo, is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse tied to a house where a series of grisly murders has occurred.
Queer Aspect: Out actress Clea DuVall co-stars in the film, which is fronted by queer icon Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Joe
Well Trace, we’re back at it for another year and we’re starting off with…a decidedly non-queer horror film. Obviously we chose The Grudge, the first English language North American entry in the Ju-On franchise, because the new film (a side-quel that takes place at the same time as The Grudge) just dropped after sixteen years.
It’s interesting to revisit this film because it feels like it is from a bygone era. Horror in 2004, as we know from several films that we’ve covered on the podcast, was in a weird state. This is right smack dab in the middle of the remake frenzy, at the intersection of the baton pass from J-horror to torture porn. Arriving two years after Gore Verbinski’s The Ring shocked the industry with a $129M domestic gross, The Grudge adopts the same familiar approach used by the second cycle of slashers in the late 90s: cast a hot TV actress as the lead, market the film to teens and laugh all of the way to the bank.
Ok, that’s dismissive and not entirely fair. BUT subsequent J-horror entries – particularly Pulse (2006), One Missed Call (2008) and Shutter (2008) – do all fit that description and are generally considered inferior imitations of their Japanese originals. Basically they’re cash grabs.
The Grudge is closer in proximity than its brethren to The Ring, albeit with a far more CW-friendly starlet in the lead. The film benefits greatly from the involvement of original Ju-On director Takashi Shimizu (tackling his first English language production) and is one of only two J-horror entries that is actually set in Japan (the other is Shutter, which coincidentally also has a Japanese director in Masayuki Ochiai).
For me, the legacy of The Grudge is the latter point. I remember the first time that I watched this in university, I found the non-linear timeline and the aural disconnect of the little boy who screams like a cat among the film’s most distinctive traits. Over time, however, it is the more human issue of being lost in translation that plagues Karen and DuVall’s Jennifer that I find scary: they are unable to connect with others or seek help because they are in a foreign country where they don’t adequately speak the language.
Even at its most basic, rote level, there’s something authentically true about the outsider status that Jennifer and Karen experience when they become lost or can’t quickly navigate Japan’s complicated subway system. This kind of linguistic and cultural struggle adds an exclamation point to the more traditionally horrifying experiences of the film: what if something like this was happening to you and you couldn’t get anyone to help you.
Susan, KaDee Strickland’s character, suffers something similar when, in the film’s scariest sequence, she’s haunted by the ghost of Kayako (Takako Fuji) at her office building and can barely string along a sentence in Japanese to ask the security guard for assistance.
Fascinating, this is something that’s unique to the remake. The Grudge adopts the same basic plot structure as the original Ju-On series, but introduces this additional layer by making the core cast American outsiders (understandable given that this film was made for the North American market). By populating the film with Americans-as-foreigners, there’s a subtle underlying critique of Americans who don’t fully understand the culture in which they’re living. Taking a step back, nearly all of the deaths in the film outside of the Saeki family (who are temporally disconnected from the others because their deaths are shown in flashback) are American: Peter Kirk (Bill Pullman) at the beginning, the entirety of the Williams family, Alex Jones (Ted Raimi), the head of the Care Centre, and Karen’s boyfriend Doug (Jason Behr) all fall prey to a curse born of a rage that they do not understand. The sole exceptions are Yoko (Yōko Maki) and Detective Nakagawa (Ryo Ishibashi), both of whom die while trying to care for the house’s occupants.
As someone who lived abroad, the fish out of water context resonated with me (and I lived in Australia, so the language barrier was merely colloquial and accent-related). To take it a step further, though, there have been times where – as a queer person – I have felt completely isolated and cut off by hetero culture. I’ve had numerous jobs where I’m the sole “out”, queer-identifying person and the sense of navigating a dominant culture that you don’t completely fit in can be exhausting, overwhelming and occasionally frightening. There’s a universal terror to the idea of being a small fish in a large pond that The Grudge subtly captures and it really helps to underline the terror for me.
Trace, I’m curious, what do you think the film’s legacy is? Do the scares work for you? And how do you feel about Sarah Michelle Gellar’s performance in her first significant non-Buffy solo outing?
Trace
Well Joe (happy to be back writing these articles, by the way!), The Grudge’s legacy has more to do with its big box office numbers and its influence on the mid-to-late 2000s J-horror remake trend than its actual quality. This is a shame because the film isn’t half bad, but I wouldn’t say it’s fondly-remembered. In fact, many horror fans I speak to seem to despise it. I call bullshit, because The Grudge is undeserving of so much hate. Is it a masterpiece of American cinema? Far from it, but the dislike seems to stem more from the wave of copycats and cash-grabs it inspired than from the film’s quality.
Back to its financial legacy, though: The Ring may have been an unexpected box office juggernaut, but it took two years for another J-horror remake to get released (The Grudge). Made for significantly less money than Verbinski’s now-classic film ($10 million compared to The Ring’s $40 million), The Grudge exploded when it was released in 2004, earning $39 million during its opening weekend. The following weekend just so happened to be Halloween, which helped The Grudge retain the #1 spot (and according to our reliable old friend Wikipedia, it was the first horror film to top the Halloween box office since 1999’s House on Haunted Hill). The Grudge would go on to make $110 million dollars domestically and an additional $77 million overseas……against a $10 million budget. To say it was successful would be a massive understatement, and I believe that the film is more responsible for the boom in J-horror remakes than even The Ring. Just look at the timeline:
- The Ring – 10/18/2002 – $129M Domestic/$249M Worldwide Gross
- The Grudge – 10/22/2004 – $110M Domestic/$187M Worldwide Gross
- Dark Water – 7/8/2005 – $25M Domestic/$68M Worldwide Gross
- The Ring Two – 3/18/2005 – $76M Domestic/$160M Worldwide Gross
- Pulse – 8/11/2006 – $20M Domestic/$30M Worldwide Gross
- The Grudge 2 – 10/13/2006 – $39M Domestic/$71M Worldwide Gross
- One Missed Call – 1/4/2008 – $27M Domestic/$46M Worldwide Gross
- The Grudge 3 – 8/27/2009 – Straight-to-DVD in the US
- Rings – 2/3/2017 – $28M Domestic/$83M Worldwide Gross
When remakes of Japanese films started to lose traction at the box office, Hollywood moved to other Asian countries. 2008 and 2009 saw a few Chinese, Korean and Thai films get the remake treatment, but all of them (save for maybe The Uninvited) were uninspired at best and downright lazy rehashes at worst:
- The Eye – 2/1/2008 – $31M Domestic/$57M Worldwide Gross
- Shutter – 3/21/2008 – $26M Domestic/$48M Worldwide Gross
- Mirrors – 8/15/2008 – $31M Domestic/$77M Worldwide Gross
- The Uninvited – 1/30/2009 – $29M Domestic/$42M Worldwide Gross
- The Echo – 5/28/2009 – Straight-to-DVD in the US
- Mirrors 2 – 10/19/2010 – Straight-to-DVD in the US
I realize that this is a very long and very boring history lesson, but these numbers and dates show just how integral The Grudge was to the J-horror remake trend. It’s entirely possible that the success of The Ring was considered a fluke by Hollywood executives, but the over-performance of The Grudge proved that there was money to be made within that sub-genre of horror.
The problem with most of the remakes that followed The Grudge is one of culture, though. So many of these Japanese ghost stories are steeped in Japanese culture, so translating them over to America proves troubling for American filmmakers. The Ring maintains the original’s atmosphere while still making itself distinctly American. The Grudge is a bit of a mixed bag in that respect because it tries to have its cake and eat it, too. As you said, Joe, it’s an American remake with a mostly American cast, but it keeps the setting in Japan. On top of that, Shimizu returned to direct a remake of his own film, supposedly agreeing to helm it because he saw the new version as an opportunity to fix the original film’s mistakes. Whatever those mistakes may be, there really isn’t that much different about the remake other than its cast and the addition of the fish-out-of-water element you mention.
And how coincidental that you connect the Americans’ fish-out-of-water tale with queerness, because I was thinking the exact same thing during my re-watch. If The Grudge brings anything legitimately new to the table, it is this element. It’s not given the appropriate amount of screen time because there’s scarin’ to be done, but the moment when the film takes a breather to explore Jennifer’s frustration at her new living situation is one of the remake’s most inspired moments. When she tells her husband Matt (William Mapother) about getting lost in the city, it’s arguably scarier than any ghostly vision of Kayako or Toshio that The Grudge presents. Is it a coincidence that it’s the queer actress gets this particular monologue? Probably, but it seems fitting, doesn’t it? Another nice moment is the one where she has to poke a hole in the noodle box to see what it smells like because she can’t read the label. It’s a small moment that speaks volumes about Jennifer and her situation. We connect more with her in these moments than we do with Karen in the entire film.
As for the plot? Well, that’s another story. Is it a bit convoluted? Sure. Do the “rules” of the curse play it fast and loose? Absolutely. But it still has a deliciously creepy atmosphere to it and, some dodgy CGI aside, has some fantastic visuals. The sound design is especially clever, with one jump scare on a bus conflating the sounds of a rattling bike chain with Kayako’s signature death rattle making the biggest impression. And Joe, I know you didn’t watch the Extended Director’s Cut, which runs a full seven minutes longer than the PG-13 Theatrical Cut, but there’s quite a bit more grotesque imagery in the former version that makes it slightly more effective than the latter (Yoko’s jawless mouth, Jennifer and Matt’s decaying corpses, the flashback to Takeo’s murderous rampage, etc.).
Joe, I’ve gone on for far too long, and I realize I didn’t even answer your question about Gellar’s performance. Sorry to say that as much as I love her, I think it’s a bit lifeless. I’ll go into more detail in my next response. Let me ask you this: does the non-linear narrative work for you? I sometimes wonder if the film would work better if it was told in a linear fashion, but its gimmick is arguably what makes the film an effective mystery (though your mileage may vary). And what say you about the rules of the titular “grudge?” Do they need to make sense? Or is their ambiguity what makes the film scary?
Joe
Oh geez, that bus scene! I’ll agree with you that the sound design is good, but OOF on the aged CGI of Kayako in the window. I inadvertently laughed before I could stop myself!
Sadly, I agree with you about Gellar. Part of the film’s issue is that it has very little interest in actual characters (they’re basically just interchangeable pieces to be moved around until the grudge comes for them), which renders the performances stilted at best and lifeless at worst. Strickland’s set piece works not because Susan is a character, but because of the unsettling imagery of Kayako appearing out of a shadow in a hallway and Toshio appearing on literally every floor of her apartment building. We don’t fear for Susan, although her death stands out as “memorable.”
Karen, alas, has no such humanizing moment. I may have smiled inadvertently when I saw Gellar’s “Buffy run” as she rushes to save Doug, but a lot of the residual empathy I have for the character is from her star-making performance as the Slayer. Which, in a way, is perhaps the remake’s savviest move – a non-linear storyline helps lift up an otherwise straightforward story of doomed one-dimensional characters, who are themselves lifted up by likeable/recognizable actors.
I’ll confess that none of the scares work for me (I’m not particularly affected by ghosts, if we’re being honest), so the non-linear stuff is the best that the film has to offer. Would it be better chronologically? Maaaaybe, but there’s something startling about seeing a dead or missing character suddenly pop back up in a later scene. It definitely helped to keep my attention this time around, particularly when you realize that there will be no escape for these characters: the minute that they set foot in that damn (gorgeous) house, it’s over for them, regardless of their attempts to escape fate.
If you start to consider how it all works, though? No, the rules make very little sense (why does Peter commit suicide? Why is Yoko the one who kills Alex instead of, say, Kayako or Toshio? Why does Nagakama’s partner survive considering he went into the house?) I will say this, however, having seen later iterations (including Sadako vs Kayako, the terribly boring attempt to cross the Ring v Grudge franchises) this tamer, simpler effort has its benefits.
What about you, Trace: do you revisit any of these J-horror entries (North American or original flavour)? Were you as taken as me by the set design, which is arguably one of the film’s greatest strengths? And do you have any initial reactions about the new film before we spill the tea in our Patreon episode?
Trace
Bite your tongue about Sadako vs. Kayako! It’s far from a good movie, but it’s a hoot and a half and is all too aware of how dumb it is (there’s actually a part where a future victim says something along the lines of “Oh, are you talking about the cursed video tape that kills you two days after you watch it? It watched it two days ago! Guess I’m going to die today!”). Now, I did see S v K in a midnight movie setting with a Fantastic Fest audience, though, so perhaps that helped?
Unfortunately I don’t revisit most of these J-horror films. I haven’t even seen half of the remakes I listed above! It’s just not my favorite sub-genre of horror. But you are correct: the house porn in this film is on point.
As for the non-linear narrative: it works for me. It’s a puzzle that the viewer has to piece together, which is fun for me although I understand that it’s not everyone’s cup o’ tea. In fact, trying to piece it all together might even dilute some of the scares. You become so focused on trying to figure out what is going on that there’s hardly any time to pay attention to the film’s scare tactics. The narrative becomes clearer on a rewatch (or if you read the Wikipedia summary, which is written in chronological order), but then the mystery is gone.
Unfortunately, screenwriter Stephen Susco (who would go on to direct the mean-spirited but highly effective sequel Unfriended: Dark Web) is so focused on this narrative puzzle that almost no attention is paid to the characters (Jennifer’s aforementioned breakfast table scene being one of the sole exceptions). Karen is meant to be the audience surrogate, but Gellar’s performance (which consists mostly of the actress looking confused and distant) makes it difficult for us to care about her. I’m sure the intention was to have her confusion translate over to the audience, but it has the opposite effect and Karen winds up becoming more of a cipher. She is the least relatable character in the film! The residual empathy you bring up is a valid point, though. Would I care about Karen as much if she was played by a no-name actress as opposed to Gellar? Probably not.
I’ll have to disagree with you about those scares, though. With the exception of the goofy head elevator bit in the film’s climax (what else would we call that?), most of them work for me. Yes, it’s mostly jump scares, but the haunting imagery and sound design gets to me. Kayako’s death rattle and the twitches her body makes as she crawls down the stairs is some truly chilling stuff. Shimizu has a lot of fun employing different scare tactics, and while they may not be as effective for you, you have to admire their creativity.
I’ll conclude this with a statement on the new The Grudge, which I saw last night: it’s fine. There is a shit piling happening with that film all over social media right now, not to mention the beating it has received from critics and that F CinemaScore. It all seems a bit excessive to me.
Is it a particularly good film? No.
Is it the worst thing I’ve ever seen? Not at all.
It’s a generic cash-grab with some dull moments and a few moments of inspiration, but it doesn’t deserve the hate it’s getting. One thing is for sure: any hope for a J-horror resurgence in the States has now been dashed. Guess it will forever live as a time capsule moment in the mid-2000s.
The Grudge is available to stream for $3.99 on iTunes.
Next time on Horror Queers: Just in time for Leigh Whannell’s new take on The Invisible Man, we’re traveling back to 1971 to check in with a different mad scientist in the sex-change thriller, Dr. Jerkyll and Sister Hyde!
Don’t forget to catch up on our previous Horror Queers articles here or check out our podcast page here.
After fifty years of continuous writing, Stephen King has become a genre unto himself.
The unrivaled Master of Horror made a splash in 1974 with his debut novel Carrie and has been terrifying readers ever since. Two years later, Brian De Palma brought this shocking story to the screen with an equally electrifying horror film that remains a genre classic and a prototypical example of “Good For Her” horror. This dual debut seemed to open the floodgates, unleashing endless waves of Stephen King films.
From the highs of Misery, Cujo, and The Shawshank Redemption to the schlocky fun of Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, and Children of the Corn, the last five decades have seen just about every notable horror creator take a stab at the author’s massive collection.
In recent years, this singular subgenre has begun to burst at the seams, expanding to include Stephen King-esque fare. In 2016, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer debuted Stranger Things, a sci-fi series heavily inspired by two of King’s most famous books. The Netflix series remixes Firestarter and It by following a little girl with psychic powers and an intrepid group of kids on bikes who must battle an otherworldly foe and a sinister government agency. With its clever blend of modern effects and comforting nostalgia, this gateway horror series paved the way for Andy Muschietti’s It adaptation which remains the highest grossing horror film of all time.
Four years later, Mike Flanagan would create Midnight Mass, a spiritual adaptation of King’s second novel Salem’s Lot. Published in 1975, the book sees a tiny New England town torn apart by a centuries-old vampire. Though Flanagan’s story is perhaps more tender, both iterations of the classic horror tale follow close-knit communities shaken to their core by the presence of an ancient evil.
In addition to these recent hits, 2025 was a banner year for the Master of Horror. Audiences delighted in six mainstream adaptations, including the massively popular It: Welcome to Derry which chronicles earlier cycles of the titular clown’s reign. With this boost to King’s cultural cache, it’s no surprise that we’ve begun to see more unofficial adaptations of the author’s work and horror creators who build their own unique castles in King’s creative sandbox.
So what defines a Stephen King-esque story?
For the past fifty years, the prolific author has dipped his toes in nearly every subgenre from supernatural stories and grisly gore to western fantasy and science fiction. Including his vast catalogue of short fiction, King has tackled ghosts, demons, werewolves, zombies, aliens, mutants, and self-driving cars, not to mention bizarre monsters of his own creation. But what truly unites this vast array of horror is King’s focus on relatable characters. In his 2000 memoir/instructional text On Writing, the prolific author describes the amusement he finds in writing disparate characters, placing them in horrific scenarios, then exploring the ways they try to survive.
An unofficial Stephen King adaptation may take place in the author’s native New England — bonus points if it’s set in Maine — and reference his well-known heroes and villains. But what makes the King connection unbreakable is a character-driven story about average people who band together in the face of abject terror.
Weapons Captures Small Town Stephen King
Following his 2022 shocker Barbarian, Zach Cregger returned with Weapons, a sprawling story that begins in a doomed elementary school. On an otherwise ordinary day, Justine (Julia Garner) arrives at her desk to find that all but one of her students have disappeared. As the mystery grows increasingly violent, Justine and Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of a missing boy, find their way to the home of Alex (Cary Christopher), the class’ only surviving student. In some ways reminiscent of Salem’s Lot, Weapons swings wildly through the unfortunate town, introducing us to its flawed inhabitants as we watch their lives fall apart.
Cregger’s setup nods to a pair of King short stories. Both “Suffer the Little Children” and “Here There Be Tygers” tackle monstrous presences in elementary schools, but as Weapons reaches its final act, Constant Readers may remember another Stephen King tale. Featured in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, “Gramma” introduces us to George, a little boy tormented by an aging witch. On an afternoon alone with his sickly grandmother, the frightened child gradually realizes that the imposing old woman has been waiting for an opportunity to cast a spell that will extend her own life by possessing his body.
Alex finds himself similarly tortured by his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), a garish witch who orchestrates a desperate plot to sustain her own strength. Transforming humans into mindless weapons, Gladys has taken over Alex’s family home and lured his classmates to the basement. Holding them in a comatose state, she syphons off their energy to extend her own supernatural life.
Vastly different in many ways, both “Gramma” and Weapons hinge on a sinister witch who uses horrific magical spells to sacrifice the bodies of her vulnerable prey.
Hokum Echoes The Shining and 1408
It’s nearly impossible to watch a film about a haunted hotel without thinking of King’s third novel, The Shining. This icy story follows Jack Torrance, an angry writer struggling with his sobriety and a shameful incident haunting his past. Accompanied by his wife and young son, Jack has taken a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook, a haunted hotel situated high in the Rocky Mountains. Snowed in, Jack finds himself tormented by dangerous ghosts who amplify his greatest fears.
Damian McCarthy’s Hokum follows a similarly troubled figure. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a surly writer who travels to the Bilberry Woods Hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. Haunted by his own tragic past, Ohm finds himself trapped in the honeymoon suite, a decaying room that’s been permanently closed to protect visitors from a dangerous witch trapped within its walls. Visual nods to King’s text abound with woodcut figurines and an animated clock, mirroring ominous descriptions found in King’s text.
Another terrifying sequence sees Ohm staring with horror at a closed door, the only thing separating him from the approaching witch. As the door knob slowly turns, Constant Readers remember Jack’s narrow escape from the ghostly woman in room 217. And Ohm’s popular Conquistador books directly reference King’s long-running fantasy series The Dark Tower which follows a gunslinger named Roland Deschain tasked with protecting the nexus of the universe.
In addition to these thematic comparisons, Hokum bears striking resemblance to King’s terrifying short story “1408.” Collected in 2002’s Everything’s Eventual, the terrifying story follows Mike Enslin, a dejected writer who’s risen to fame penning essays about his adventures in haunted locations. Mike arrives at the Hotel Dolphin and bullies his way into the titular room, despite the manager’s dire warnings. McCarthy nods to this story with an ominously misplaced hotel room door, reminiscent of King’s entry to 1408, an unsuspecting portal that appears to move each time Mike looks away.
However, McCarthy’s most direct reference lies in a minicorder Ohm uses to capture notes. Trapped inside the dreaded honeymoon suite, this device offers well-timed messages while sitting next to a decomposing corpse. Mike records his time in 1408 with his own trusty minicorder. Described for the reader, his tape has captured the man’s slow descent into madness as the room prepares to swallow him whole. With conclusions that differ wildly in tone, both Ohm and Mike find their lives irrevocably changed by encounters with the supernatural realm.
Widow’s Bay Builds Its Own Version of Castle Rock
Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay has taken the idea of an unofficial King adaptation and turned it into an art form. The Apple TV series sees the residents of the titular island plagued by a curse that dates back centuries. Not only does the picturesque hamlet not accommodate wifi connections, those born on the island face certain death should they ever try to leave. Desperate to modernize the tiny town, Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) draws in waves of tourists just as a new cycle of terror begins.
Blending horror with deft comedy, Dippold makes cheeky references to King’s body of work. Tom warns that, “there’s something in the fog,” reminding readers of King’s 1980 novella The Mist. And Loftis’ own stay in the town’s haunted hotel sees him tormented by the ghost of a murderous clown. We even spy a vintage King hardback peeking out of a local book trade box.
In many ways Widow’s Bay feels like a new iteration of the author’s Little Tall Island, a tiny village off the coast of Maine. In addition to the 1992 novel Dolores Claiborne and a handful of harrowing short stories, this quaint fishing village is also the setting for King’s 1999 teleplay Storm of the Century. Premiering on ABC primetime, this tragic tale follows a terrified group of islanders who batten down the hatches for a dangerous Nor’easter only to find a more sinister threat lurking within.
Constant Readers may also be reminded of Castle Rock, the author’s favorite fictional town.
First introduced in the 1981 novel Cujo, the charming village becomes the star of Needful Things, King’s satire about consumerism. After several Castle Rock stories, we’re reintroduced to its residents as they gossip about the arrival of Leland Gaunt and the grand opening of his curio shop. Anything their hearts desire can be found in his varied inventory, so long as they’re willing to pay the price. Pitting cantankerous neighbors against each other, Gaunt ignites a wave of grisly violence by exploiting long-held resentments and feuds.
The town’s only defense against this supernatural threat is beleaguered sheriff Alan Pangborn. Still grieving the deaths of his wife and younger son, Alan struggles to connect with his older child and pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Also a widower, Loftis struggles to raise his own restless son and explain the strange details of his wife’s tragic death. Attempting to unravel the island’s dark secrets, Tom is aided by quirky residents including a surly fisherman named Wyck (Stephen Root) and Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), an earnest Town Hall employee. King’s own novels feature many of these proactive alliances with disparate characters combining their strengths to overcome insurmountable odds.
With Widow’s Bay renewed for a second season and Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series on the horizon, the future seems bright for new King adaptations, both spiritual and directly pulled from his catalogue. The prolific author also shows no signs of slowing down with two publications nearing release. His upcoming novel, Other Worlds Than These, is the long-awaited third Talisman book which teases direct ties to his Dark Tower world. Holly Forever will be a new installment of his crime series, offering a different kind of genre fare.
This embarrassment of riches spawning multiple worlds seems ripe for spiritual adaptation and will likely inspire horror creators for decades to come.
Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root and Matthew Rhys in “Widow’s Bay,” now streaming on Apple TV.
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