News https://bloody-disgusting.com/tag/kadee-strickland/ Horror movie news, reviews, interviews, videos, podcasts and more Tue, 03 Nov 2026 18:51:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.11 https://i0.wp.com/bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/cropped-bd_circlelogo.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 News https://bloody-disgusting.com/tag/kadee-strickland/ 32 32 38024669 ‘The Thing In The Hall’ To Star KaDee Strickland, Booboo Stewart & Milo Hutton https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3974443/the-thing-in-the-hall-to-star-kadee-strickland-booboo-stewart-milo-hutton/ https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3974443/the-thing-in-the-hall-to-star-kadee-strickland-booboo-stewart-milo-hutton/#respond Tue, 03 Nov 2026 18:51:53 +0000 https://bloody-disgusting.com/?p=3974443 Milo Hutton (The Night Agent), Booboo Stewart (Twilight franchise), and KaDee Strickland (The Grudge, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid) are set to star in psychological horror movie The Thing in the Hall, Deadline reports today. Filming is underway now on The Thing in the Hall, the feature debut by writer-director Logan Kishi, inspired […]

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Milo Hutton (The Night Agent), Booboo Stewart (Twilight franchise), and KaDee Strickland (The Grudge, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid) are set to star in psychological horror movie The Thing in the Hall, Deadline reports today.

Filming is underway now on The Thing in the Hall, the feature debut by writer-director Logan Kishi, inspired by E. F. Benson’s 1912 short story. Benson was known for his atmospheric and often satirical ghost stories.

The story centers on “Francis Assheton (Stewart), a psychology graduate student who moves into the isolated home of his longtime friend, Louis Fielder (Hutton). When Louis introduces Francis to his experiments in spiritualism, their shared curiosity takes a turn, drawing them into something neither fully understands.”

Strickland is set to play Claire Winter, the defense attorney tasked with investigating Francis’s account following a fatal incident.

Kishi’s Darkbox Entertainment is producing the indie horror movie.

Stay tuned for more as it arrives.

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The Strange Legacy of ‘Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid’, the Last Big-Screen Snake Movie Before the Reboot https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3967896/the-strange-legacy-of-anacondas-the-hunt-for-the-blood-orchid-the-last-big-screen-snake-movie-before-the-reboot/ https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3967896/the-strange-legacy-of-anacondas-the-hunt-for-the-blood-orchid-the-last-big-screen-snake-movie-before-the-reboot/#respond Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:00:47 +0000 https://bloody-disgusting.com/?p=3967896 For many people, Anaconda was their first snake movie. While not exactly the first of its kind, this 1997 creature feature reignited a trend. Not since the classic eco-horror cycle had we seen nature acting so viciously toward mankind. Plus, with it being the ’90s, these beasts were capable of more destruction; advances in effects […]

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For many people, Anaconda was their first snake movie. While not exactly the first of its kind, this 1997 creature feature reignited a trend. Not since the classic eco-horror cycle had we seen nature acting so viciously toward mankind. Plus, with it being the ’90s, these beasts were capable of more destruction; advances in effects had made their rampages elaborate and grisly.

It only made sense for a box-office hit like Anaconda to then have a sequel. Yes, it took some time for those in charge to put more super-sized danger noodles in our eyeballs, but nevertheless, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004) happened. More surprisingly was the fact that this follow-up premiered in theaters, as opposed to on cable or on video. Until the 2025 reboot slid into view, this was the last time the franchise touched the big screen.

Anacondas was originally envisioned as a creature-run-amok story set in New Orleans. When that novel idea proved too expensive, though, this stand-alone sequel returned to the jungle, albeit a location where you normally don’t find these kinds of snakes in the wild. Using Fiji as Borneo, the movie revealed a thriving population of green anacondas living in Southeast Asia. Like most things here, you just have to go with the flow and not ask too many questions.

anaconda

In addition to all the anacondas, Borneo’s jungle hides a rare flower that acts as a literal cure-all. The Perrinia immortalis is a floral fountain of youth that proves challenging to both find and procure. The Blood Orchid, if it even still exists, blooms for just a mere sixth months before slipping into dormancy for seven years. Hence the urgency of one New York pharmaceutical company and the general unreadiness of its would-be expeditioners. Not among these six suits and researchers is anyone I would wager is a big Survivor type on the weekends. These muscles are for show, not for fighting snakes.

Thus the need for an action man like Bill Johnson. Here, Johnny Messner plays that toughly handsome expat and jack of all trades whose expertise is necessary to survive the wilds of Borneo. First it’s his sinking rustbucket of a ship that’s suddenly headed straight for a waterfall, then it’s an opportunistic crocodile in need of taming. Before long, Mr. Johnson is all that stands between these American urbanites and some of the most agile snakes to ever slither across the screen.

By the time Anacondas was in the works, Jennifer Lopez’s star had exponentially risen. Casting her in the sequel would have been too expensive, joked director Dwight H. Little. In Lopez’s place were actors whose faces don’t ring a bell to general audiences, although the unmistakably Southern KaDee Strickland would become a wee bit more recognizable after her appearance in The Grudge (2004). Co-star Matthew Marsden, whose character here turns out to be a real snake in the grass, went on to star in actioners, as well as the revenge-horror movie Tamara.

anaconda

Flanking the ostensible survivors, plus the human villain in waiting, are Eugene Byrd as the comic relief, Nicholas Gonzalez as yet another admirer of Strickland’s part, Salli Richardson-Whitfield as a danger-prone fish out of water, and Morris Chestnut as the exec who spearheaded this journey gone awry. As if the cast wasn’t already large (and attractive) enough, Johnson’s partner is played by Karl Yune.

The second Anaconda was first announced in 2000, but obviously it took some extra time to haul that monster out of the water. Regardless of the changes in staff and the rewrites, there was always one goal in mind; the snake had to be bigger. Much bigger. The emphasis there, including any action related to the snake, apparently didn’t leave too much room for the human characters. Paper thin as they are, though, they are never devoid of personality. What they lacked in star power, they made up for in presence.

After some waiting, we do finally see one of the namesakes in serpentine action. That reveal sends a jolt up the audience’s spine, but the admittedly dated CGI also causes major cringing. Even back then it looked crummy as hell. However, there was a need for speed with the new specimens, and according to visual effects supervisor Dale Dugid, digital was the only way to achieve that. Actual anacondas, by the way, are not anywhere as quick and nimble as the ones found in movies, and they certainly don’t pop out like Piranha Plants.

anaconda
Warren Beaton’s redesign of the anaconda.

In the making of the sequel, real green anacondas were deemed too “bizarre and comical” in the face. Take a second to look up one of these snakes, and you’ll likely agree. That less-than-intimidating expression of theirs prompted the first two Anaconda movies to give these creatures facelifts. The ‘97 model is indeed more menacing than its natural counterpart, yet there’s still something goofy about it. Then in the sequel, creature illustrator Warren Beaton totally overhauled the ‘condas so that they would look almost draconian. On paper that’s fine, but the final product is held back by the crude digital execution.

Looking past the questionable VFX, the sequel at least made the smart decision to maintain a steady pace; it never quite offends us with any substantial lulls in the story. The constantly growing presence of the snakes after the first act, along with the characters running around like headless chickens, amounts to some vacuous entertainment. The movie plays things seriously without also taking itself too seriously.

All these years later, Anacondas still plays as an amusing B-movie. Its cultural impact is far less than that of the original flick, and the effects aren’t anything to brag about, but it’s a quick and brainless shot of snake horror that saves you from digging into the absolute dregs of the franchise.

Trust me, things got a whole lot worse after this movie.

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“Cruel Summer” Season 2 Review – Young Adult Series Returns With an Addictive New Mystery https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews/3764649/cruel-summer-season-2-review-young-adult-series-returns-with-an-addictive-new-mystery/ https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews/3764649/cruel-summer-season-2-review-young-adult-series-returns-with-an-addictive-new-mystery/#respond Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:42:52 +0000 https://bloody-disgusting.com/?p=3764649 The first season of Cruel Summer was an unexpected hit for Freeform back in 2021 when it became the No. 1 new cable drama among women. The series had a great hook: the story was divided across three years, each visually distinct, following the same characters as their circumstances changed in relation to a central […]

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The first season of Cruel Summer was an unexpected hit for Freeform back in 2021 when it became the No. 1 new cable drama among women. The series had a great hook: the story was divided across three years, each visually distinct, following the same characters as their circumstances changed in relation to a central mystery.

In season one, that was the kidnapping of a popular girl. In season two of showrunner Elle Triedman‘s anthology series, the stakes have escalated to murder.

Just like before, the action involves two high school girls: risk-averse, straight A student Megan Landry (Sadie Stanley) and Isabella LaRue (Lexi Underwood), the wealthy daughter of diplomats. The latter girl is essentially an exchange student who comes to stay with Megan and her family – mom Debbie (KaDee Strickland) and younger sister Lily (Jenna Lamb) – for a year in the small Pacific North West tourist town of Chatam.

The earliest of the three timelines is July 1999, when Isabella first arrives on the eve of Ocean Bloom Festival. Almost immediately the girls get off on the wrong foot. Megan has to relinquish her incredibly cool Air Stream camper for the new girl, and Isabella arrives with expensive welcome gifts, which makes poor, proud Megan bristle. Isabella takes every opportunity to talk about her worldly travels and how she is looking forward to spending time in a small town, which she doesn’t realize sounds both condescending and a little disingenuous.

While the color scheme for July 99 is warm yellows and oranges, the Christmas-set Winter 1999 time period is bathed in cool blues and greys. The friendship that eventually developed over the Summer has blossomed into a “ride or die” sisterhood, though there’s tension and distrust brewing over a sex tape featuring one of the girls and Luke (Griffin Gluck), a local boy who is currently dating Megan, but dated Isabella back in summer.

Luke also happens to be the son of the most powerful man in town, Steve Chambers (Paul Adelstein), who regularly berates Luke and his older brother Brent (Braeden De La Garza) about the importance of family, appearances, and reputation above all else. The fact that both girls are involved with Luke while Debbie is Steve’s employee (and – in the Winter scenes – his girlfriend) makes everything more complicated.

The final timeline, lit in sickly greens, is set six months later in Summer 2000 when a body is pulled from the lake. The identity of the corpse isn’t revealed until the closing moments of the premiere and subsequent episodes delve into the fracturing relationships between the remaining characters as they come under suspicion by Sheriff Myers (Sean Blakemore). He’s particularly interested in Megan, who has shifted from a goodie two-shoe to a hard-edged hacker with slicked back hair and a hard drive full of secrets.

One of the joys of Cruel Summer is parsing through the show’s multi-tiered chronology in search of clues. Is amateur videographer Jeff (Nile Bullock) hiding something in his camcorder footage (regularly seen at parties)? Why does Brent’s girlfriend, Parker (Lisa Yamada) put up with his nonsense when she seems so cool? Whose face is seen on the sex tape that is publicly displayed at the Chambers Christmas party? Is the crazy, gun-toting neighbour up at the cottage involved? And what to make of the fleeting mentions of Isabella’s troubled past in St. Barts the previous year with her MIA best friend Lisa?

The acting is consistently good, particularly Stanley and Underwood, who have great chemistry together. It’s particularly fascinating to watch the girls interact in the Summer 99 timeline when Isabella is desperate to win Megan over, and then contrast that to their combative scenes in Winter 99 when Isabella becomes the target of malicious small town gossip and loses Megan’s unwavering support.

For audiences of a certain age, the show’s extremely specific time period will evoke plenty of nostalgia. The rudimentary computer font that types out the dates at the start of each episode, as well as floppy discs, a reference to Princess Diana’s memorial, and the fear about Y2K are all extremely on-brand details for 1999. And that’s before the turn of the century soundtrack is factored in.

Just like how Yellowjackets leaned into its 90s anthems, Cruel Summer isn’t afraid to set the mood with an iconic needle drop – some good (Sugar Ray’s “Every Morning”!), some…not (Smash Mouth’s “All Star”). It’s all in service to helping to ground the Y2K mystery in time.

The Bottom line: while season two of Cruel Summer doesn’t quite match the same level of gonzo twists as S01, the drama between Megan and Isabella is always compelling and the narrative frequently ventures into unanticipated territory, particularly in the build up to the murderous New Year’s party.

For fans of mysteries and YA, Cruel Summer is your new obsession.

 “Cruel Summer” Season 2 premieres on June 5, 2023.

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[Horror Queers] Lost and Isolated as a Queer Metaphor in ‘The Grudge’ (2004) https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3599441/horror-queers-lost-isolated-queer-metaphor-grudge-2004/ https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3599441/horror-queers-lost-isolated-queer-metaphor-grudge-2004/#respond Mon, 06 Jan 2020 18:00:59 +0000 https://bloody-disgusting.com/?p=3599441 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 […]

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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.

Be sure to check out and subscribe to the Horror Queers podcast! We’re still writing one article a month, but we release one podcast episode each week and discuss one film per episode. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, or RSS.

***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.

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