The Grudge
On ITV2 tonight at 11.00pm
In my opinion Friday nights are the best nights for watching horror movies. If you get a bit spooked and need to stay up late watching something silly and lighthearted while the irrational fears wear off, then it doesn’t matter because you can have a Saturday morning lie-in.
And this film is very jumpy, very chilling and very creepy, and may well see you leaving the hall light on, or checking every room for intruders – supernatural or otherwise.
Buffy’s Sarah Michelle Gellar plays an American in Japan dealing with a cursed house haunted by a vengeful evil spirit. The film is pretty much a shot-by shot remake by director Takashi Shimizu of his ghostly Japanese revenge chiller Ju-On. It has the same plot and same locations – it’s just that this one has a largely American cast and no subtitles. Why? They keep on doing this – remaking perfectly good subtitled movies in the English language with high-profile American actors. What it proves to me is that there must be swathes of people out there who won’t even consider a film if they’re told they’ll have to read the dialogue on screen. It doesn’t bother me personally. If a film’s good, you forget about the subtitles. It’s only when a movie’s dire that they become tiresome and off-putting.
Read the What’s On TV review here.
