I guess last night was the night of sequel/prequels. Thing is, my husband and I don't get out often to see movies in the theatre, so these late night double features are getting to be our thing. Before I get on about the movie, I would just like to mention the dumbass sitting about 4 seats down from us. People who need to talk about the movie while the movie is on are one problem. People who talk about the movie in terms of the mental lightbulbs going off in their heads (ex: "That was the dude from the first movie!", "That was the chick from earlier!"), should not be allowed to SEE movies in public.Perhaps at all. I didn't feel like leaving the film to have a manager kick out the moron and his woman, so I resorted to other methods. Like whispering "Cocksucker!" and "Dickhead!" every time he started. Surprisingly, the overall frequency and amount of talking diminished. My husband claims that there is something wrong with me, and that I wasn't raised right. Perhaps...
Okay, about The Grudge 2. Again, I liked The Grudge. It is still one of those movies that I cannot watch at night. It is also the reason I decided I couldn't adopt an Asian child because I would piss myself if I woke up in the middle of the night and said child was standing next to the bed. You know, wanting a glass of water or something. Or to screw with my head and meow at me. I also thought The Grudge was Bill Pullman's best role ever aside from Newsies. (I'm really forcing a straight face here, but man it's hard.) What I do regret is that I didn't see Ju-On first, but it did help seeing it before G2. (That's the new hip way to say it. What, you didn't know? Of course not. Cause I just invented it...in my head.)
G2, from the trailer, appears to follow a singular story line- Karen's (Sarah Michelle Gellar) sister Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) goes to find out what's going down. The movie, however, does not follow this linear path and is done more in the format of Ju-On. If you've seen that and understood it, you'll be accustomed to the jumping from story to story (the second story being that of the school girls who go into the house and get grudged.) For some reason, I wasn't expecting a continuing remake, but a continous of the story established in the first movie. To me, this parallel story line did not translate well in this American version and I wonder how much of the younger audience (it is PG-13 after all) had the attention span to keep up with the flip-flop. That's not an insult, just an acknowledgment of the A.D.D. I did enjoy the little throwbacks to the original, such as the old man who can see Toshio and plays peek-a-boo with him.
I enjoyed this movie, but just not as much as Ju-On, and I would recommend to anyone wanting to see this to see the original first. (But only if you like subtitles.) Two and a half nanas. (Yes, I finally made halves. WOOT!)