Sarah Michelle Gellar

"The Grudge" is a new horror movie, whose DVD hits stores this week. It is a link in a new chain of horror following movies like "The Ring," "Saw," and the new version of "Dawn of the Dead."

"The Grudge" is about an American nurse who is given an assignment to take care of a woman who spends her days sleeping. She soon realizes the house is haunted, and an investigation is started to figure out what really happened in this house.

The movie grossed over $100 million at the box office and was the 21st highest grossing movie of the year. But many of the critics gave it a C to D rating overall. So, what drove so many people to see this movie? "The Grudge" fails to be a high quality film. But as a horror movie, it is a success. It provides lots of scares and thrills and makes the viewer jump - which has not happened for many of us since viewing "The Ring." The movie also is able to scare you without much in the way of blood and guts. The PG-13 rating may lure people away, but this movie has more scares then many R-rated horror movies.

One of the problems with the movie is you learn everything bit by bit. The flow of the plot is very jolted. It appears that Director Takashi Shimizu tried to copy the Tarantino style of filmmaking with his own spin. It is different but not necessarily effective.

The movie tries to copy different assets from "The Ring" and "Ringu." The victims all die from a frightening look. The little boy, the killer or main villain, seems to scare his victims to death. There is even a scene where a police officer is watching a tape and the dead person walks toward the screen. Though he does not walk through the television, the affect seems over-used.

Sarah Michelle Gellar has already tried to be a scream queen in "Scream 2" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer." In both she was just another pretty girl killed off in a below average horror movie. Here she gets the chance to be the lead. She fails. She always seems distant and never to be the main character of the story.