DVD Review: The Grudge 3

My review of Toby Wilkin's The Grudge 3 is over at Flash-Bang. Click the link, after;


What follows is the uncut beginning of the review. I edited it out as I felt it was too long and too self-indulgent for the Flash-Bang review page;

During the late eighties, I managed to anticipate the interest in Manga movies over here in the UK, after watching a dodgy Japanese copy of Akira on VHS; no subtitles, didn't need them. Well, I suppose I did really, but I got the general gist and recognised the superb quality.

After watching a terrible dubbed version of John Woo's The Killer I managed to forecast an interest in the genre of "Heroic Bloodshed" movies here in the UK.

With "J-horror" I was much slower on the uptake! Although I was a big fan of the Oxide's The Eye, much of the obvious Far Eastern horrors passed me by initially. The Ring being one. I caught The Ring when it was shown on Channel 4. It was introduced by Mark Kermode; you might have heard of this fella. He helpfully warned us viewers that "The part when Sadako climbs out of the television set will scare the shit out of you".

Great! I thought. I want to be scared! So I sat waiting for this scene. I waited and waited until I discovered, with anger, that it was the punchline ending! Bastard! Why the fook Kermode had to be clever and introduce a movie by giving away the ending, I'll probably never know but it smacked of arrogance at the time.

Anyway, Ju-On 1 and 2 were genuinely creepy. Same kind of take as The Ring; the scary aspect is a woman that has jet black hair and kills. I watched the US continuation, thinking "So what?". I watched The Grudge 2 to ensure that I could review Toby Wilkin's Grudge 3 and know what events led to the story. So here we are...

The Grudge 3