Begrudgingly

I haven't been keeping up on my posts too well, so I apologize to the two or three of you who read this, and I'm going to write a little blurb in here and call myself "caught up".

The Grudge 3 trailer came out today and I cannot tell you what a waste of time it is. There are so many Grudge movies out there: four in Japan, three in America. I know, I know, there are 9 Freddy movies and 11 Jason movies and 9 Halloween movies. But those are all different - as far as they aren't remakes of each other. The Japanese Grudge movies consist of two made-for-TV movies and two features. The features then got made into the first two U.S. Grudge movies and now the third one is coming out, straight to DVD. Here it is:



Excited for this? Here's a tip for all you movie advertising newbies: If the first half of your trailer consists of clips from the previous movies in the series, then your movie is probably not going to do well. When you put a trailer like this together, you're telling people that not only does your movie not have enough cool shit in it to make it's own complete trailer, but that it isn't good enough to stand on its own. "In order for The Grudge 3 to be seen we have to get people to remember seeing the first two [seven] movies!" I think that's how the pitch meeting went for the advertising of this flick.

By the way, getting people to remember having seen the previous Grudge movies is a Sisyphean task in and of itself. Not only do they blend together in a way that only Japanese ghost stories can, but the grudging ghosts look like every other ghost/paranormal creature in J-Horror history. Here are some comparisons:

Samara from The Ring (U.S.)


















Sadako from Ringu (Japan)


















Kayako from Ju-on / The Grudge (Japan / U.S.)














Anyhow, as you can see, ridiculousness abounds and there isn't any difference in the outward appearance of these ghosts. They also behave in a very similar way: jerky movements. I admit that Japanese ghosts scare the crap out of me, but that's because of some latent spectral racism that I am having a hard time overcoming. (Also the language barrier would be a problem for me. I can't be haunted by a Japanese ghost because I don't speak Japanese. At least I could try to reason with an American ghost.) So these jerky movements are stupid, even though they are kinda scary. What these movies are telling our nation's youths is that when you're dead you walk like you have ten types of scoliosis in your back, with a nasty case of rickets and club feet to boot! What hope do the handicapped have if they know that in the great beyond they're going to be more crippled than they are now? I always thought that when you were dead you could move as fluidly and gracefully as you had ever thought possible. I guess I was wrong. Or maybe it's just the bad milk they have in Japan.