...we're suffering from a dearth of true boogeymen, the figures that loom in our shared pop-cultural nightmares. It's the faces that stay with us.

| Mar 11, 2020

Pesce has hired some fine actors and squandered them on a plot that isn't ingenious enough to justify the heartlessness that's all part of the package at this end of the horror movie market.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 30, 2020

The Grudge could have been something much more than just another notch in a never-ending franchise. As it is, the film is exactly as competent as it needs to be.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 30, 2020

There is little that sets this apart from the earlier films.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 26, 2020

Forget about chilling to the bone, The Grudge barely drops below room temperature.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 24, 2020

We shouldn't have to put up with the barrel-scraping inadequacies of "creak, creak, creak, screamy face!" any more. So don't.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jan 24, 2020

Trapped in a pile of garbage: I'm sure the cast of The Grudge know how that feels.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jan 24, 2020

A generic but competent reboot-quel enlivened by good performances across the board and some stylish direction. No grudges need be held here, but maybe it's time to put this franchise to bed.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 23, 2020

This new reboot (of sorts) sidles up like the return of a lingering bad smell, reminding you that there's something nasty behind the wardrobe you really ought to sort out.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 23, 2020

Some fans of the franchise may be aggrieved that he does little with the original Japanese ghosts, but in his version, the curse is what's important. It is rage against dying, against an unfair universe, and so it is self-propagating.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 9, 2020

It is a pity that the whole thing goes so obnoxiously off the rails just as it's building to a conclusion.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 8, 2020

[W]hile John Cho is a welcome addition to any film, the biting shot that wraps up his storyline doesn't wholly compensate for its mushy buildup.

| Original Score: C | Jan 7, 2020

At 93 minutes, what is perceived as a slow burn is drawn out and painfully dull. The Grudge is another remake no one asked for, and the characters imply that as well.

| Jan 6, 2020

The real asset here - as well as the movie's main likely problem for many viewers - is its bleak tone.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 5, 2020

his Grudge is a trudge through muck, meandering plot, half-baked performances, and tired tropes that should've been retired by the end of the 2000s.

| Jan 4, 2020

There was one moment in "The Grudge" when the movie, ever so briefly, rose to the level of greatness... Instead it settles on being merely okay.

| Original Score: 2.75/4 | Jan 4, 2020

What's really interesting about this version of The Grudge -- not the film itself, which is really basic, jump-scary, not that funny, and pretty mean -- is that it has a really terrific cast who are trying their best to make this a good movie.

| Jan 4, 2020

Nicolas Pesce evincing little of the promise he showed in his prior films, and even less drive to remake the old into something new.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jan 3, 2020

Things keep devolving into a sort of "stock beats" catalog of J-scares that goes from déjà vu to dullness to deadening.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 3, 2020

The remake remains cursed by a fatally hokey concept.

| Jan 3, 2020