If people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, then 90-pound teenage girls who sneak into haunted houses shouldn't tempt fate. Another film filled with chesty victims and thrilling chases, "The Grudge 2" is the classic campfire ghost story translated to the silver screen. And because "The Grudge 2" is a loose combination of haunting images and a nonsensical plot, it is only worth seeing with a group of people that can spend hours laughing about it afterwards.
Set in Tokyo and then in Chicago, the movie follows three stories: The first concerns Vanessa (Teresa Palmer), Miyuki (Misako Uno) and Allison (Arielle Kebbel) in Tokyo before they stroll into the haunted house infamously inhabited by the angry spirit of Kayako Saeki (Takako Fuji).
The second follows Aubrey Davis (Amber Tamblyn) as she travels to Tokyo to learn why her sister Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was hospitalized for trying to burn down Kayako's house and finds herself in the middle of the grudge.
The third follows the story of the family that lives in the Chicago apartment next to Allison's after she flies home to escape the grudge.
If this movie sounds too confusing to follow, that's because it is, especially since it is not always told in chronological order. Approximately 95 minutes long, the movie is essentially a blur of suspense, clueless teenagers and Kayako's black hair. Despite the chilling images the movie provides via amazing make-up and even better directing by Takashi Shimizu, the film is unintelligible and - even by the loose standards of horror films - unrealistic.
Although the premise of "The Grudge 2" is dependent upon the spirit of a woman who is powerful enough to transcend death (but still has to spend an hour and a half chasing a terrified teenage girl), it's not the most unlikely element of the movie.
For example, there is a particular scene in which Aubrey sees Kayako clearly staring at her from the window of the haunted house (and Kayako actually appears to be deviously smiling at her), so, of course, Aubrey responds by passing through the unlocked gate to get a closer look.
One merit to the film, however, is that it is so fast-paced that it feels natural to suspend disbelief and logical questioning, though this, of course, doesn't apply to its general incoherence. The storyline is often so confusing that most of the twists are uncomfortable and disjointed, as subplot threads are abandoned and contradicted throughout the film. For example, Vanessa and Miyuki explicitly say that they have been in the haunted house before (and clearly know their way around the house), but are not haunted until Allison joins them when they visit it the second time.
As far as the performances are concerned, Edison Chen, as Eason a documentarian who chronicles The Grudge's history, is the most striking. Subtly talented and handsome even while under attack, Chen makes fear look good. Takako Fuji, who plays Kayako, is also astonishingly good, although she is not offered many consecutive moments of screen time. The rest of the cast is merely average, except for Misako Uno, who was tragically bad, but useful as the only character - aside from Eason - who seemed native to Tokyo.
There seems to have been a conscious effort on the part of the writers to provide enough background to ease viewers into the concept of this sequel, but viewers who have not seen the original may not understand everything about the plot.
In a nutshell, if you're a fan of the horror genre, watch "The Grudge 2" if you want to have nightmares about the bad plot, not the bad ghost.
