The Grudge

It's enough to send you home with jiggly knees and a tummy ache.

Isn't particularly scary. No, it's much harder on you than mere fright: It's . . . creepy.

It's enough to send you home with jiggly knees and a tummy ache.

Gets on your nerves.

It's effectively frightening. It's just not the kind of frightening that stays with you very long, unless of course someone decides to make the same movie . . . yet again.

It's effectively frightening. It's just not the kind of frightening that stays with you very long, unless of course someone decides to make the same movie . . . yet again.

A horror film that consists of virtually nothing but don't-go-in-the-attic suspense scenes strung together with a reasonable degree of brooding mood and a minimum of logic.

A horror film that consists of virtually nothing but don't-go-in-the-attic suspense scenes strung together with a reasonable degree of brooding mood and a minimum of logic.

At least the horror premise here has a hook - a house can spread its curse like a plague to adversely affect all who enter.

Shimizu can't quite pull everything together, trying to get off easy with a bargain-bin twist ending that most of the audience will see coming by the time the pile of corpses reaches double digits.