The Grudge 2 (2006)★★★★☆

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie! After the mild disappointment of last night’s movie, I was skeptical and a little worried. But I enjoyed this!

It seems like some of the stories from the Japanese film that didn’t quite make it into American remake were saved for this movie. In particular, the schoolgirl story.

I found the characters in this movie much more compelling than the last. Maybe it’s because I really like Amber Tamblyn, but I was genuinely more interested in Aubrey’s story than Karen’s, even though they’re essentially the same story.

(Spoilers ahead) The one thing I didn’t quite understand…how did they get to Chicago? Did Allison go back home after her International School peers disappeared? Maybe I missed that scene? And how did the curse then haunt Trish and Jake? Neither of them went into the house!

So there are definitely pieces of this story that didn’t quite fit with the rest, but the movie still sold everything pretty well. It’s longer than both of the originals, but I thought the pacing was good enough that I barely noticed.

We’ll see how the third movie holds up against the first two (and the Japanese original), but I’m significantly less wary today than I was yesterday (but maybe that’s a bad thing!).