The Grudge 3 (2009)

If anyone has been looking for a review lately, I’m sorry I haven’t been around to give it to you. At least Rachel has managed to get a couple up while I was away. I didn’t go far actually, I just have been very busy. These last couple of weeks has been the final push to graduate from college. Because of that, I decided to throw everything at it, and put movie reviews on the back burner for a little while. I’m glad to say that I will be graduating! Even though I have the ceremony to prepare for, I wanted to get back on track with reviewing horror movies again. One of the other things that got put on the back burner is interviews. I managed to set up an interview with Splinter’s director, Toby Wilkins, just before things started getting really busy for me. In a way, I wanted to wait on the interview when I learned that The Grudge 3 was about to be released on DVD, which Toby also directed. I figured since I had the interview, I might as well ask about this new film as well.

It has actually been a while since I watched The Grudge, and The Grudge 2, so I was hoping that this new film would be a self contained sequel. That isn’t the case though. The Grudge 3 does actually pick up sometime after the events in The Grudge 2. Jake (Matthew Knight, the only returning cast member) is now in a mental hospital, where his doctor (Shawnee Smith) is trying to make sense of his story. She is also trying to figure out why he is so afraid of being alone. Jake is afraid that “she” will return to kill him, like she did the rest of his family. Of course he is correct about that. Kayako (now played by Aiko Horiuchi) does show up to kill him, even though she doesn’t show up on the video camera. From there, we go back to the apartment building that part of the last film took place in. We meet Max (Gil McKinney), who is the manager of the apartment building. He is trying to take care of his two sisters, Lisa (Johanna Braddy) and Rose (Jadie Hobson), while trying to keep people from moving out after what happened there. To add to his problems, no one else seems to want to move in, and Rose has some sort of breathing problem that is pretty serious. Max’s boss is threating to let a management company take over if Max doesn’t turn things around. Since the curse from the first two films has now been reborn in Chicago, it is up to Kayako’s sister (Emi Ikehata) to try and put a stop to it. Will she be able to do so before Kayako kills off everyone that is left in the building?

Since I don’t recall the events in The Grudge 2, I was a little lost at the start of The Grudge 3. It has been close to two years since I last watched the second film, which means there have been a lot of other films since then. Even so, I like sequels that pick up the story from the other films, more than I like the self contained sequels. So one point for this sequel already. While I was watching this film, and putting at least enough together to follow the story, I started to feel a little indifferent with it. It wasn’t really the films fault that this was happening. I just started to realize that it was the same basic story as the other films. Someone comes across the curse, and now the little boy (who didn’t look little at all in this film) and his mother haunt that person, or people, until their own deaths. Once you have watched this once or twice, it really doesn’t become that big of a deal anymore. To give Brad Keene some credit though, he does try to mix the story up a little bit. He adds some history to Kayako, explaining how she grew up some. Keene also gives a way for the curse to be stopped, where in the other films they claimed there was no way to do this. The supposed reason why Kayako’s sister never showed up in the other films, is because she didn’t want to believe what her sister had become. It is a little odd to bring in such an important character late in the series, I guess I will forgive them this time.

Even though this is the first film in the series to get the R rating, I can’t really figure out why it got it. Maybe it could have been because the swear words, as I did notice a few. No nudity to be found anywhere. At least one effect may have given the film an R rating, with a knife going through a neck, so I’m sure that helped at least a little bit. Seems like I see some effects in PG-13 films that I am surprised are there though. I don’t have anything to complain about as far as the effects go, outside of the fact there maybe could have been more of them. What we do good are some good effects though. The knife was a good one, and we also see some nice makeup on one of Kayako’s victims. The acting is what kept the story interesting for me. It is always nice to see Swanee Smith in a horror film. She doesn’t have one of the major roles in this film, but her role ended up being bigger than I was expecting it to be. I usually side more with the female lead more than the guy, but this time I have to say that I really enjoyed Gil McKinney’s performance. His slip into madness from the pressure of his job, and trying to take care of his little sister, maybe makes the film worth watching for that alone.

Toby Wilkins does a fine job with the film as well. He does set up some shots that end up being creepy. Like when Rose is sleeping, and…well I don’t want to spoil it at all. One of the things I found really interesting was found on one of the extras. The Grudge 3 ended up being filmed in Bulgaria, which is no where near Chicago. In order to use the apartments that were used in the previous film, they had to build it in Bulgaria. They ended up doing such a good job with it, that Matthew Knight was amazed at how much it looked like the set from the second film. The building of the new set helped Wilkins a lot, because he was able to go through and figure out how he wanted to film some of the scenes long before it was time to do so. Thanks to the creepy scenes, and the acting, The Grudge 3 did manage to pull me back into it. Even though I admit it turned out better than I was expecting, I also have to admit that The Grudge films are starting to get rather old. This sequel does set things up for a possible fourth film, in a way I actually kind of liked, but maybe it is time to let the spirits rest.

3 out of 5 Laughing at what Lisa, and her boyfriend, do in other appartments