Stars: Amber Tamblyn, Jennifer Beals, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Edison Chen, Eve Gordon, Arielle Kebbel, Takako Fuji

Director: Takashi Shimizu

Summary: Aubrey attempts to figure out the mystery behind the strange goings-on related to a house that has hospitalised her sister. She teams up with a journalist and the pair embark on a trip to the Japanese countryside, hoping to visit the mother of one of the house's original inhabitants.

The titular curse expands along with the franchise in the sequel to THE GRUDGE, which itself was a remake of the Japanese original for American audiences. The film has an ensemble cast and an extensive number of subplots that further reflect this tendency towards expansion. The story picks up right where the last one ended, with Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) in the hospital, the only survivor of an ill-fated encounter with a cursed house. She has not emerged unscathed, however, and it's up to her estranged sister, Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn, JOAN OF ARCADIA), to figure out the mystery behind the strange goings-on related to the now half-demolished house. In doing so, she teams up with a journalist named Eason (Edison Chen), who has been following the case from the very beginning, and the pair embark on a trip to the decidedly creepy Japanese countryside, hoping to visit the mother of one of the house's original inhabitants. Meanwhile, three teenage girls who attend a local international high school are haunted by nightmarish encounters, which begin after they venture inside the house to pull a mean prank on the new girl. When one of the girls returns home to Chicago, the curse spreads to her apartment building, where members of a family that have recently acquired an unexpected new stepmother (Jennifer Beals, FLASHDANCE, THE L WORD) violently turn on one another. Symptoms of the curse begin to turn up everywhere, while a horrified Aubrey learns that there is no way to stop it from spreading. Although the film suffers from a diffuse plotline, the high production values and well-executed special effects ensure a highly satisfying experience for discerning viewers out for a thrill.

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The Grudge 2 is a spooky installment in Takashi Shimizu's hardworking Ju-on/Grudge series of horror pictures. It doesn't carry the disorienting thrill of the very first Japanese Ju-on features, but it's a lot creepier than anybody could have expected. The story picks up from the end of the first Hollywood version of The Grudge, and has nothing to do with Ju-on 2, Shimizu's Japanese sequel. Sarah Michelle Gellar returns (a distinctly supporting role) as an American woman traumatized by her experiences with a haunted house in Tokyo; younger sister Amber Tamblyn flies over to help out. This particular storyline doesn't have much meat on it; the murder house is still there, and people who go inside have a disconcerting habit of dropping dead. Fortunately, two other plots thread into the basic one: a group of American schoolgirls in Tokyo become intrigued by the legend of the house, and some Chicago apartment dwellers are unsettled by domestic anxiety and the weird sounds coming from next door. (This storyline, featuring Jennifer Beals, gives the film its extremely satisfying opening sequence.)

As usual with these movies, sequences come to us in non-chronological order, and it's up to us to piece it together. You can guess where the film is going, but the slow trajectory toward its final sequences is surprisingly involving. The movie was widely panned upon its release, which says more about the presumption of the law of diminishing sequel returns than the film itself--it's a decent little horror flick. --Robert Horton

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	The Grudge 2 Storyline Development, Deleted scenes, Additional footage, East Meets West featurette, Holding A Grudge - Kayako and Toshie featurette
Year:	2006
Release Date:	May 7, 2007
Runtime:	103 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	8248434
Keywords:	English, Grudge, Horror, Occult
Genre:	Horror/Occult