I’m going to start a list of films that are being remade or, as the saying now goes, rebooted for no particular reason except that Hollywood can’t be bothered to come up with any new ideas. The latest film to be added to this list is the creepy, low-budgeted horror flick The Grudge.
The original English language version of The Grudge was made all the way back in 2004 so, naturally, most of the world has forgotten it ever existed. It was itself a remake of the Japanese film Ju-On, produced by the same director, Takashi Shimizu. The Grudge was the slightly more cohesive of the two, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as an American nurse in Tokyo who goes to take care of a woman in a house permeated by rage and hate. It helped to establish the low-budget/high-yield horror film as a viable box office venture, not to mention that it made me afraid to open the attic door.
The reboot is being produced by Ghost House Pictures, the same company behind the original film, and Good Universe. There’s no word on a director as of yet, and it’s probably too much to hope that Shimizu will return for another version of his film. However, Midnight Meat Train writer Jeff Buhler has been tapped to pen the reboot, which probably means even more gory violence than before.
I suppose it should not come as a surprise that we’ll see a Grudge reboot, but one wonders what this will mean for all those other early-2000 American versions of low-budget horror films. Will we have another The Ring? Dark Water? How far back could this go, and for long will it go on? Let’s not even mention the possibility of actually rebooting Paranormal Activity, because my mind just will not go there.
We will, of course, keep an eye on The Grudge reboot as cast and crew developments arise.
