| Screen Gems | Release Date: January 3, 2020 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
3
Mixed:
16
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews
Jan 6, 2020
The Grudge is overly reliant on jump scares and the sheer number of characters involved here means that some are thinly-drawn, though the crackerjack cast of actors breathes at least some life into their respective parts. The real asset here — as well as the movie’s main likely problem for many viewers — is its bleak tone.
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The Observer (UK)Jan 26, 2020
The cluttered parallel story structure – the fates of several different individuals over a period of two years are woven together – results in a series of mini-scares rather than a gradual build to a big one. And since we already know the fate of most of them, all the diseased yellow lighting and oppressive sound design in the world can’t engineer much tension.
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Jan 2, 2020
This is not a “fun” horror picture. It’s about miseries both supernatural and mundane. And, yes, it’s scary. Pesce’s art-film roots are evident in the movie’s slow-burn first hour. But in the final third, The Grudge piles on the explicit gore and jump scares — all leading to a final scene and final shot as terrifying as anything in the original series.
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SlashfilmJan 3, 2020
There’s plenty of grisly stuff here, and a lot of it is done practically, which might entice some gorehounds. But that can only go so far. Pesce’s The Eyes of My Mother has ten times less gore than this and still managed to be ten times as scary. Here’s hoping he gets back to making something like that, and soon.
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Jan 3, 2020
Overall, though, the director and co-writer’s merciless style is muffled by The Grudge’s over-reliance on clichéd jump scares; more damningly, only some of these are effective, even in terms of cheap thrills. This becomes especially true in the film’s second half, when the ghosts become at once more human and less creepy.
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The PlaylistJan 4, 2020
Nicolas Pesce is a tremendous talent with a sick imagination that is distinctively his own, but “The Grudge” feels like payday one-for-them compromise. One that unfortunately sullies and derails the reputation of an otherwise on-the-rise filmmaker who should be above this kind of second-rate material.
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Jan 3, 2020
Mar 26, 2020
Three films into his career, Pesce is batting below average: Last year, he dropped his inventive sophomore stunner, Piercing, and demonstrated range and precision not as evident in his hollow, unrepentantly nasty debut The Eyes of My Mother. With The Grudge, the worst proclivities of that movie override the sensibilities of Piercing and combine with studio horror’s “just play the hits” ethos, resulting in one of the year’s most unpleasant releases to date.
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