Sarah Michelle Gellar

I’m usually wary of horror movie sequels, but with movies like “The Grudge” and “The Ring” I cannot resist the temptation. Those two films are two of the best psychological horrors to hit theaters in this new generation of horror flicks, particularly those originating from Japanese influence. “The Ring” had its sequel and it was a poor and pale follow-up at best, having substituted conceptual scares and nonsensical plot for the darkness and pure, unstoppable suffering that made the first one such a smart horror with frightening depth. What “The Ring” did for suffering, “The Grudge” did for rage, giving it limitless reach and power. “The Ring Two” failed terribly at reprising that concept, but “The Grudge 2” has done a decent job of it. The sequel to 2004’s “The Grudge” was written and directed by the same crew as the first, namely director Takashi Shimizu and his co-writer Stephen Susco, so it’s not surprising that this movie has the same feel as the first one. Star Sarah Michelle Gellar even returned to bring her character Karen Davis back briefly so we can get a proper introduction to her sister Aubrey as played by Amber Tamblyn (the TV series “Joan of Arcadia”) who also happens to have appeared in “The Ring.”

The actress coming in as Karen’s estranged sister also actually landed one of her earlier roles on an episode of Gellar’s teen fantasy/horror show “Buffy” in 2001. Arielle Kebbel (“Gilmore Girls” and the “Law & Order: SVU” episode titled “Mean”) also plays a key part as Allison, a student at International High School who just wants to be one of the girls and winds up being bullied into the closet of the house and becoming one more conduit for the raging spirits that want to escape and be free. When Aubrey is sent to Japan to get her sister Karen out of the psychiatric ward of the hospital and bring her home, she finds her sister disturbingly haunted and a short while later, she is dead. Aubrey and Eason, a reporter she meets at the hospital who has also been exposed to the rage that lies within the house, set out to unravel the mystery not fully understanding the trail of death already behind them and how much more lies ahead. But, this is not all there is to the story. There is an apartment in Chicago where a mystery girl has apparently brought the raging spirits to be let loose on the unsuspecting residents of the building. Jennifer Beals appears as a girlfriend moving in with her boyfriend and his two children, but from the first scene, we know where this is going, because we see Beals obviously possessed by an infectious rage that she takes out on the aforementioned older boyfriend.

All of this follows a trail, and approximately three stories are being told at once. Time isn’t always linear and these plots jumble when these characters become too numerous early on, which overcomplicates the film a bit. While there are a few reasons to see this movie, there are a few things about it that are probable to disappoint. The creep factor of the mother and son is still present, but the biggest complaint I had about the film was the overuse of this scare tactic. These raging ghosts were too present. Literally every five minutes there is some sighting or encounter involving them, and they lose their effectiveness as objects of fear with the lack of shock value.

However, their presence remains chilling, despite the overkill, but again, it’s just a case of going for the scare way too often in the name of getting the maximum screen-time for the two ghosts. The course and the way it plays out is invariably predictable. After overuse of the ghoulish visuals, my biggest complaint is that they had to give the woman ghost an extraordinary and paranormal background that removes her from the everyday, so as to lessen the sense that this rage could start with anyone, which is what makes most horror effective; it’s universality. Last but not least, the ending did nothing for the film and fell flat on its face, whereas that is what made “The Ring” and “The Grudge” as well as any effective horror flick with a creepy finale. In the end, “The Grudge 2” did a far better job of following its successful origin than “The Ring Two,” but it by no means matches the first one with unlikable and disposable characters and an excessive indulgence in details that were so terrifying in the first one because of their psychology and unpredictability. It’s worth seeing, but don’t expect too much from it.