Whether you wanted it to or not, The Grudge is coming to home media, and is bringing with it a “horrifying alternate ending.”
Acting as a ‘sidequel’ to the film of the same name released in 2004 (which was a full remake of Japanese horror Ju-On: The Grudge), the pic’s anthology structure variously follows a widowed police detective investigating a suspicious death, a married realtor couple trying to sell a property, a terminally ill dementia sufferer whose husband brings in an assisted suicide consultant, and a pair of detectives investigating the deaths of a young family, each of which revolve around a house that appears to be cursed.
While the film didn’t exactly set the box office alight, a take of $44 million against a budget of $10 million is not unreasonable, even if it was largely savaged by critics and audiences alike. It also didn’t help that the movie repeated the disjointed non-linear structure of the original and its sequel, jumping back and forth in time in a way that only confused rather than augmented the story.
Once it has you, it'll never let you go…😱👻 #TheGrudge is coming home on Digital 3/10, Blu-ray & DVD on 3/24 with a horrifying alternate ending!https://t.co/g1ZmQ14PgN pic.twitter.com/vComCj4ncU
— The Grudge (@GrudgeMovie) February 13, 2020
Horror fans often like their films to be nasty, but not without purpose or something about them that challenges. As if not quite understanding this, The Grudge simply comes off as nihilistic, largely replacing the expected suspense and tension with drudgery and spite, interspersed by uninspired and derivative jump scares and the occasional recurrence of the crackling death rattle of Kayako to actually give it a quantifiable link to the franchise.
The prospect of a new ending is intriguing, but is likely just the alternative one seen in some international releases that, without wishing to spoil things for anyone who cares, is not as bleak as the theatrical US version but is nevertheless a familiar way of ending a horror movie that fans will likely be unimpressed by.
