The creepy Japanese woman with the infamous 'Uhhhhkkkkkkuuuuuhhhhhkkkkkk' sound is back.
Acclaimed director Takashi Shimizu and screenwriter Stephen Susco are back with The Grudge 2 and although this one isn't a remake of the original (and really scary) Ju-on 2, unlike its predecessor, it manages to send chills down your spine.
It's always messy when one is doing a sequel. The story has to be told differently, yet not too differently; it must please fans of the franchise and it must hook a new audience who shouldn't worry about renting the DVD to the first part.
Here's where things get complicated. Although the director does a good job with re-creating the creepy atmosphere replete with creepy clangs and blood curdling bangs, he fails to deliver a novel horror experience.
Yes, there are the truly dark, disturbing moments like the girl who unexplainably starts drinking milk out of a half-gallon carton and then puking milk back into it or the ghostly image in a photograph that starts moving by itself.
But the film soon treads the formula path and delves into the typical American horror format of storytelling that is completely reduced to non-stop, episodic chills, jarring 'jhatkas' and isn't nearly as effective as a good ghost story.
The Grudge 2 continues where the last one left off. Karen Davis (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is being kept in a hospital following the ordeal of the first film, which centered around a house in Japan where a woman, Kayako Saeki, had been killed by her husband and thus created 'The Grudge', a rage that consumes every living being that enters the house.
Karen's sister Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) comes to Japan to bring her sister home and almost immediately gets involved with the dreaded curse as she teams up with a reporter, Eason (Edison Chen), who is equally questioning about the strange events that take place in the house, that gives everyone who goes into it a sorry, gory, free ticket into the afterlife.
Unlike The Grudge, this sequel showcases two more parallel storylines that run in the non-linear narrative fashion cutting back and forth until you are a little perplexed and just want the Japanese Girl (Kayako) to walk her creepy walk and snap someone's neck off.
We are introduced to three schoolgirls, who visit the haunted mansion to play a little prank on their friend. Obviously, the prank backfires and 'The Grudge' is unleashed.
Then, there is Trish (Jennifer Beals) who moves in with Chicago-based Bill (Christopher Cousins) and his two kids, Lacey (Sarah Roehmer) and Jake (Matthew Knight). Trish has been looking forward to moving in, but the day she does, so does a peculiar neighbour, after which all and sundry hop aboard the eerie express and the dead bodies begin showing up by the dozen as Kayako has a field day.
And then, there is a pretty cool (but slightly predictable) twist in the tale, which tells us how all the stories are inter-related and connected to the curse.
Shimizu, who, by now, has directed almost seven Grudge films (including the Japanese TV movies) offers plenty of scares and some genuinely chilling moments. But he lets the audience down as the film quickly becomes a guessing game when and how the ghosts will show up.
Also, the film strays from its premise of the haunted house and it almost seems as if the ghosts just hate anyone who speaks English as it goes on killing characters we really don't care about.
And we all know repetition is the death of horror.
Rediff Rating: 
