We've all heard about that one scary movie. The one movie that was labeled to be the scariest movie ever. Sometimes, we're too scared to watch it. But when you do, you find out that it's not as scary as you'd think

As kids, most of us looked on to scary movies as truly scary. The screaming, and the gore was something that scared us when we were younger. Eventually, that grew old with the more emotionally-numbing horror movies that we watch today. Even the commercials we see can numb us from the sensitivity to horror.

I'm here to review the grudge, no shocker. The title already states this. Just one thing I want to say. I'm reviewing the American version of the grudge. As I've read, people state the Japanese version to be scarier.
Spoiler Alert!

The Grudge, a 2004 movie directed by Takashi Shimizu, is a horror movie, more resembling a ghost story. Basically, the story is similar to the average ghost story. Before the movie even begins, it flat out tells you that, when a soul dies with anger, it leaves behind a curse, and it never goes away.

After this, or before, I don't remember, the movie opens up with a clip of a man standing on the edge of a balcony, in Japan. Next, we see a woman, wake up from sleep. Both characters are from American descent. The woman begins to flirt with him, when he emotionlessly falls off of the balcony killing himself. The woman, for some reason, only seems moderately concerned.

Now, we go into a new storyline, completely forgetting these people for most of the movie. Not only is this confusing, but it also comes in too early. The new storyline, is with a Japanese girl, and a sick woman. The Japanese girl is supposed to watch over the woman, acting as her helper around the home. As she's cleaning up, she goes upstairs, and hears a creak (A creak, that never happens in a house). She goes into a room, and investigates the closet, upon which she sees the monster, and is pulled up to the closet. We don't see how she died.

Now, we actually go onto the real storyline. There is another couple, in a similar looking hotel. I'm not good at remembering names, so don't expect to see any. The male, begins stressed out, and worried about missing an exam. The woman informs him that he has an hour left, and the couple makes out.

Next, we go onto the alternate storyline, (or possibly the same, I don't know). This time, the woman is applying to work for the woman who needs maid help. Yeah, the Japanese girl's deathhouse. (If that's a real term). She needs to work for the woman, so she goes to the house. Now, we see the woman, as the new girl introduces herself. The woman, whatever her name was, doesn't talk once. She just stares, which got on my nerves for some reason. Next, the woman sees something, a head of hair coming from the ceiling, as if a wig was on the ceiling. Guess who they see? The woman was not harmed.

Eventually, after a bit more useless storyline that accomplishes nothing at all (No character development, no plot), we get into a part where a family is looking to buy a house. The silent woman, (Let's call her "Suspicious Woman" is with the family, trying to buy the house. Maybe this was the same house, maybe it wasn't. Suspicious Woman, now able to move on her own, seen fully on her feet, not needing a helper, is standing in a room, staring at the corner. The other characters are apparently her children. They ask her what's upset, to which she doesn't answer. Then, the salesman, who I forgot to introduce, goes into the bathroom, because he hears crying. He sees a drowning child, in the bathtub, whom he tries to pull out of the bathtub, and slap his face until he wakes up. Eventually he wakes up, and the family buys the house.

The family begins to notice paranormal things happening, like seeing the child taped behind a door, and seeing the child doing usual creepy ghost things. You know, stereotypical. (The same child who was drowning from before)

Eventually, the family looks into it. The woman looks the address up online, to find out that the mother, and the son were murdered by the father in that household. The son also makes some physical appearances.

One thing I want to address, is that people had made physical contact with the child. When the man tried to save him, he did save the child, and he had held the child before he opened his eyes. I didn't think ghosts were alive.

Now, since all of the scary stuff happened, they call the detectives, who actually take the time to explain some of the plot a little more. Don't worry, this part is really boring anyway. I almost stopped watching the movie, but I continued on.

Nothing really much happens after here. The Grudge appears in a few more places, there's even a Kuchisake-Onna reference, and that's about it. The family moves out, and the house is taped up. They go back into the house, and they see the most disturbing things at this point. The protagonist, the younger woman who helped out the older one after the original Japanese girl died, and her boyfriend, or spouse, went into the house, even though it had police tape all over the enterance. They saw things, like the boy, on the floor, drawing. He had bruises over his cheeks, and appeared emotionless. Now, we get to the disturbing part. One of the characters walked into a room, emotionless, to see a pair of legs hanging from the ceiling, hitting the wall, and bouncing off. Then, we see a flashback. The father of the family is abusing an older female member of the family. I'm not sure if it's the mother, or the daughter. Probably the mother. Then, we see the son, hiding in the corner, staring emotionlessly at the situation. Then, she leaves the room, and they plan to burn down the house, as the grudge appears. Moving slowly. The character can't unlock the door in time, and the protagonist's boyfriend dies, being killed by the grudge. The woman dumps over the tanks, and burns the house, with the grudge nearly killing her. Then, we go to a shot of a hospital. She's staring at an ER room, with a body underneath, and she starts crying, while sad music plays in the background. Most likely it's the boyfriend, but it's not explained. Then, a hand drops down from the bed, and the grudge appears behind her. The movie ends here

Wheew, that was a long plot summary. Now, onto the movie. It wasn't that scary, and wasn't really emotional until the end. The jumpscares weren't that affective, but it might have just been me. The story also wasn't very explained. The characters in the beginning, the man who killed himself, was only explained because of a side-article explaining it on the webpage when she looks up the history. Overall, the movie was alright. It wasn't scary, but the story was pretty good. Although being confusing in the beginning, it was pretty intriguing. The story also wasn't explained that well, leaving us confused until the end. Overall, the movie was interesting in the beginning, boring in the middle, and finally interesting again at the end.

Who would I recommend it to? Probably someone who has an interest for detective stories. I'll admit, things like CSI can be interesting, but this wasn't very intriguing. More like a day job level of interesting. I would recommend it to someone who is afraid of supernatural beings. The movie was alright, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a high attention span

This review took me about an hour to type. I would really appreciate feedback, thanks to anyone who views it. I will do requests, if anyone sends one to me. Thanks for reading, and please leave a comment. Feedback means a lot to me, it tells me what I'm doing wrong, and what I could fix to be a better reviewer.