The Grudge 2 (2006)

Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery and Thriller
Duration: 1 hr. 35 min.
Starring: Amber Tamblyn, Arielle Kebbel, Jenna Dewan, Jennifer Beals, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Director: Takashi Shimizu
Producer: Robert G. Tapert, Takashige Ichise
Distributor: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Release Date: October 13, 2006
Writer: Stephen Susco

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Synopsis
When good girl Aubrey Davis (Amber Tamblyn) arrives at her mother’s (Joanna Cassidy) home, all she gets is grief. Even before she reaches her mother’s bedroom, Aubrey hears her wracking cough. In another movie, this would be a sure sign of mom’s imminent demise, but in The Grudge 2, it’s more an indication of her hatefulness and poor parenting skills. Miserable and mean, Mrs. Davis instantly berates her daughter for being late.

This reference to time as a linear phenomenon is deceiving. For Mrs. Davis, who will never rise from her bed, but only recur as an image of infirmity and baseless recrimination, time is meaningless, only a device with which to batter her daughter. For everyone else—most certainly viewers—time is broken and abstract. Such disturbance is thematic in Takashi Shimizu’s remake of his own second Japanese film (as of 2006, he has directed seven iterations of the Ju-on/Grudge series). The primary horror here is a function of repetition: the film is a seeming jumble of repetitions and echoes that only makes narrative sense in retrospect. Except that “sense” is not really the effect.

From Columbia Pictures and Ghost House Pictures comes the much-anticipated sequel to the 2004 worldwide hit The Grudge. The terrifying thriller The Grudge 2 explores the dark secrets of the grudge as the terrifying supernatural curse is unleashed on a group of seemingly unrelated victims. One by one, they are infected by the grudge, which quickly moves from a burned-down house in Tokyo and spreads to everyone who crosses its path. The Grudge 2 stars Amber Tamblyn under the direction of Takashi Shimizu, from an original screenplay by Stephen Susco. The producers are Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Taka Ichise.

Cheers,
ez
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