The Grudge 2

First, I feel like I need to explain something.

I watch SO MUCH TV and I've seen SO MANY movies and read SO MANY books that not much surprises me. I feel like I've seen everything before. It's just new character names and slightly different dialogue.

When a movie surprises me, I LOVE IT! That's why I like M. Night Shyamalan's movies so much, because I've never guessed what the BIG secret is before it happens. Well, I mean not 15 minutes in to the movie like usual.

Evan and I joke that I'm psychic because I can frequently say the exact line a person is going to say in a movie or show that I've never seen before before the character says it. It gets on our nerves actually.

But anyway, when Juon was first released in the theaters everyone said it was "So Scary!" and since they knew I liked horror/suspense/thriller movies they said I HAD to see it.

Ok. I waited for it to come out on DVD. (Dur)

It was strange and confusing. At the time, I thought that because it was in Japanese (with subtitles), I couldn't follow the plot. I didn't know what was in the past or present and all of the women looked alike. (I HATE saying that! When people say all black people look alike it pisses me off because we so obviously don't. But...all those Japanese women looked alike to me.)

Anyway, I thought if I saw "The Grudge" I would understand Juon. Because it would be in English, and I can tell non-asian people apart from each other, LOL. Different hair color, different noses, etc. But "The Grudge" was confusing too. I felt like it was unresolved and I couldn't understand why they'd even felt the need to make an American version of Juon.

I've seen other Japanese movies since and they are ALL fucked up, so I don't rent Japanese movies anymore. I mean, maybe if it had a samurai or something, but not another Japanese "Horror" movie.

I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that horror movies don't scare me. At best, they get my adrenaline pumping. I feel tense with anticipation. But usually...I just watch because I have nothing better to do and I like them better than comedies.

I'm sure another part of it is that Japanese culture apparently believes more in the supernatural than we (Americans) do.

But, The Boy and I went to Movie Gallery to rent some movies today and I saw "The Grudge 2". He picked out Idlewilde and I got Katt Williams' HBO Special and another horror movie.

So I watched the movie. Still thought it was fucked up, but at least they tried (?) to explain more in this one than in the first one. In the first movie, The Grudge, I understood how all the characters were involved and why they were all touched by the grudge. In this one, I didn't understand how ANY of the people were involved or related to any of the other characters but the last couple of scenes sort of implied that because of what the stupid teenagers did in the beginning of the movie, everything else that happened after that was their fault.

Fine.

Then I watched the special features.

JAPANESE PEOPLE PURPOSEFULLY MAKE VAGUE AND UNRESOLVED MOVIES!

Yes.

The American & Japanese directors and producers said it! Several times.

The Americans wanted more of the plot spelled out for American audiences. The Japanese didn't want that. So because the first Grudge made the Americans so much money they wanted to keep the director so they had to work with him in not "giving too much away" in the movie.

*Sigh*

I don't like that.

I'm fine with mysteries. I love mysteries. BUT ONLY IF THEY MAKE SENSE.

One of the producers even said "I was worried about the fact that in this Grudge we have 3 storylines with unrelated characters but..."

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

So it wasn't supposed to make sense?

So there is no link between Victim A and Victim B?

The Japanese guys were like "In American movies, there's no crazy person who kills everyone in a particular area. Bad things happen to good people for no reason at all." and "In American movies there are explanations for why the bad guy does what he does which eventually tells heroes how to defeat him."

Is that so wrong?

We all know that bad things happen to good people for no reason. But it's more fun when bad things happen to stupid fuckers that get high and have sex in the woods and don't run when they see some psycho with an ax coming towards them, than some high school student who was just minding her own business.

No more Japanese shit. No more American shit based on Japanese shit.

I'm thoo. (Translation = Very forceful THROUGH, OVER, FINISED, DONE)

Anyway, if you like watching offal that makes no sense, get the Grudge 2. If you like movies with an understandable plot, get something else. Even low budget crap is better than this.