The Grudge (2020)

“It’ll never let you go.”

Filmology Rating: 1.5 out of 4

The Grudge is the first film of 2020. It is another January film from Sony that nobody will see and will be the film people look back on when making their 'Worst of 2020' list and go, "Oh yeah." A spooky Japanese demon is brought to the US, via carry-on packaging, where it decides to haunt a house. There is a myriad of narratives that are all flashbacks that involve this house that are all thread into the main narrative about a detective who investigates these events in this spooky house. 

There is a very clear clash of two different camps of horror: something along the lines of 'The Hole in Ground' and your generic "spooky lady wearing a white night gown has drooping wet hair that covers her face who screams at the camera every once and while." All the horror elements in this film are as generic as you could possibly imagine. Jump scares, creepy children, dimly-lit locations. It's all here and it's all laughably cliche. 

There is also the attempt at a drama. The first ten minutes of this film is actually not bad. Then the stupid horror elements come into play. The drama itself moves at such a snailing pace to where you begin counting the minutes until the credits roll. 

The ending itself was mind-numbingly stupid. In the last thirty seconds, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't be hilarious if the film ended 'like that?' That would be so dumb." To my delightful surprise, the film literally ends 'like that.' The film has zero redeeming qualities and it's just the most generic film Sony could have put out.

Rating: Skip It

-Nolan