Traditionally, the first weekend in January is a pretty boring time for the box office. If we’re lucky, there’s a horror film that surprises everyone and does great business. However, by and large, what we’re left with are holiday holdovers trying to scrape together the most post-Christmas money before families go back to work and kids go back to school. So, it shouldn’t be any real shock that this weekend was pretty boring, especially when our lone hope for shaking things up — “The Grudge” — failed in spectacular fashion.

Continue reading Audiences Hate ‘The Grudge’ As ‘Star Wars’ Wins The First Box Office Weekend Of 2020 at The Playlist.

Even though much of the 2004 version of the J-horror “The Grudge” is loud, unapologetic cornball schlock—see the unintentionally funny scene where Bill Pullman plummets to his death from the peak of a hotel high rise—the new 2020 version produced by Sam Raimi, is one of the more muddled horror remakes in recent memory. Takashi Shimizu inadvertently spawned a franchise when he remade the 2004 version from his own Japanese horror staple “Ju-On: The Grudge” (2002) and the series comprised mainly of carefully calibrated jump scares and haunted house mumbo-jumbo.

Continue reading ‘The Grudge’: Artful Horror Filmmaker Nicolas Pesce Falters With A Typically Dull January Horror [Review] at The Playlist.

The best thing about movie viewing in January is how much time there is to play catch up if you’ve missed much of the prior year. Oscar nominations are right around the corner, and in the interim between now and any Sundance buzz that begins to brew, there’s not much in the way of theatrical releases that are going to catch an avid film fan’s eye. That is, unless you’ve been really looking forward to remakes and sequels of properties such as “Dolittle,” “The Grudge” and “Bad Boys.”

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2019

Things are looking dire and considering January is no one’s favorite month of the year (if you’re in our neck of the woods, it’s just far too cold and gloomy), the best bet is to play catch up, binge some therapeutic feel-good shows to get us out of the gray of winter or, better yet, finally dig through the films that have accumulated in your Criterion Channel watch list.

Continue reading 8 Films To Watch In January: ‘The Grudge,’ ‘Bad Boys,’ ‘Dolittle’ & More at The Playlist.

Director Nicolas Pesce’s upcoming horror film “The Grudge” is very difficult to pin down. Perhaps it can best be described as a reboot/sequel to a popular American film franchise from the early-2000s that was, itself, a remake of a popular Japanese horror film series. Or you know, based on the new trailer, you can just say that the upcoming film is just pretty freaking scary.

READ MORE: ‘The Grudge’ First Look: Nicolas Pesce Says New Film Is Not A Remake & Is “A New Chapter In This Canon”

As seen in the new NSFW trailer for “The Grudge,” the film follows the story of a detective that finds herself left to deal with a vengeful ghost that has cursed a suburban home and is now after her and her young son.

Continue reading ‘The Grudge’ NSFW Trailer: Andrea Riseborough Is Not Prepared For What She Sees In This Disturbing Clip at The Playlist.

Who could forget the impromptu game of paranormal peek-a-boo with a terrified KaDee Strickland? How about the same entity uttering its unmistakable death rattle, as it slinks its way down the stairs to confront Sarah Michelle Gellar? Most iconic of all, what about the cold fingers that seemingly emerge from the back of the latter’s head within the personal privacy of a shower? It has been 15 years since Takashi Shimizu brought “The Grudge”—itself an Americanized remake of his 2002 film “Ju-On: The Grudge”—to audiences.

Continue reading ‘The Grudge’ Trailer: The Horror Franchise Returns With John Cho, Andrea Riseborough & Director Nicolas Pesce at The Playlist.

Horror remakes are a dime a dozen, nowadays. Why would Hollywood ever come up with a new idea, specifically in the horror genre, when there’s tried and true IP out there that is ripe for revisiting? Well, when it comes to the upcoming American reboot of “The Grudge,” the film’s director Nicolas Pesce doesn’t feel like his film falls into the above category.

Speaking to EW, who have a few first-look photos from the film, the director says that “The Grudge” doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with the remakes that have been populating theaters over the last several years.

Continue reading ‘The Grudge’ First Look: Nicolas Pesce Says New Film Is Not A Remake & Is “A New Chapter In This Canon” at The Playlist.

“The Grudge” is an interesting case study in a horror franchise that has had difficulty sustaining itself beyond a single film. The Japanese original spawned six sequels, but none of them have been as memorable as the first film. When the property went stateside for the 2004 remake starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, it was a big hit, tallying up $187 million worldwide. However, that goodwill didn’t last long as the follow-up, released two years later, couldn’t even crack $100 million globally, and everything pretty much stopped there.

Continue reading ‘Eyes Of My Mother’ Director Nicolas Pesce Rebooting ‘The Grudge’ at The Playlist.

The Curse Continues: 'The Grudge' Gets Rebooted By Sam Raimi

Continue reading The Curse Continues: ‘The Grudge’ Gets Rebooted By Sam Raimi at The Playlist.