Sarah Michelle Gellar

Amber Tamblyn knows a little something about horror.Her father, Russ Tamblyn, starred in the classic "The Haunting" (1963), after all, as well as in the horrifically bad likes of "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" (1971) and "Blood Screams" (1988).

Amber herself has guest-starred in an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (2001) and played a bit part as Naomi Watts’ cousin in "The Ring" (2002).

That expertise lay behind her hesitance when she was offered the chance to star in "The Grudge 2," directed by Takashi Shimizu, who had directed both "The Grudge" (2004) and "Ju-On" (2003), the Japanese film on which it was based, as well as a couple of Japanese sequels.

"My initial reaction was much trepidation, only for the fact that I’d done the first ’Ring’ film," Tamblyn recalls. "I was thinking, ’Well, I’ve done my horror movie.’ There’s always a fear of being put in this weird typecast position of, ’Oh, she only does this.’ Plus ’Grudge 2’ is another horror film, and there have been like a ton of really crappy horror films that have come out that I’ve seen in the last two years, that I really wasn’t stoked about. And it’s a sequel. So it had a lot of things going against my doing it.

"But we talked about it," she continues, "and my agent said, ’You know, it’s not like they’re just picking strange people to do this movie. It’s Sam Raimi producing and it’s Takashi Shimizu directing it.’ Shimizu-san directed the Japanese ’Ju-On’ series, and that was a really important element to me. It’s his baby, it’s his child. It’d be like Robert Rodriguez coming back to do ’Sin City 2.’ It’s his creation, and you want to be a part of that.

"So I was a little excited after I heard all of that about ’The Grudge 2,"’ Tamblyn says. "Then I read the script and was even more excited."

The 23-year-old actress is best known as the title character in the critically acclaimed, sadly short-lived series "Joan of Arcadia" (2003-2005), as well as for the film "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" (2005). Needless to say, "The Grudge 2" is a different sort of project.

Set to open on Oct. 13, the film picks up not long after the events of "The Grudge," in which Sarah Michelle Gellar played Karen, an American woman who moves to Japan only to find herself dealing with a malevolent curse called the Grudge that overwhelms its victims with fear before moving on to someone else.

Speaking by telephone from her Los Angeles home, the breathlessly speed-talking Tamblyn explains that she plays Karen’s sister, Aubrey.

"Aubrey is the underdog of her family," Tamblyn says. "Karen is the good girl, all-American, great in school, really close with her mother, and Aubrey is timid and quiet and doesn’t really know what she’s doing. She’s sort of living in her sister’s shadow a little bit.

"Her mother, who is really, really sick, then calls upon her to say, ’Your sister is in the hospital. We don’t know what the hell is going on. She tried to burn down a house. She’s in a mental institution. She might die. Go see her.’

"And so Aubrey has to go to Japan by herself," Tamblyn says. "That’s really interesting because, to me, metaphorically, it’s very much the same element of her going in to try and figure out what the Grudge actually is, trying to figure out that mystery and getting caught up in it through the web that her sister has spun."

Tamblyn - who’s due next in the drama "Stephanie Daley" and the teen comedy/drama "Normal Adolescent Behavior," with a thriller called "Blackout" about to begin shooting - goes on to report that "The Grudge 2" will be released with a PG-13 rating.

"Let me tell you this, there has been a major rumour that it’s going to be rated R," Tamblyn says, "which is funny because it was almost rated R. I think it was debated very heavily whether it was going to be R or not. We had to shoot a certain part of the film two different ways. I had to come back and reshoot a scene.

"This is what’s great about Shimizu-san, that he doesn’t have to have heads flying off or gore or language," the actress says. "The violence is implied. It’s all implied - you know what’s going on and it’s scary, but you don’t have to see it. So we had to reshoot this one scene because the MPAA saw (the initial version of) it and said, ’This would be rated R,’ even though there’s no blood or anything.

"I can’t tell you about the scene because it’s really pivotal," Tamblyn says, "but I will say that it left a lot of bruises on my body. I have pictures of them, and one day I’ll post the pictures on my Web site so everyone can see what I’m talking about."