David Ricardo and THE GRUDGE 2

Between viewings of THE US VERSUS JOHN LENNON and STRANGER THAN FICTION I nipped into a neighbouring cineplex with a quart of Lemsip to catch an hour of THE GRUDGE 2. I don't know how to review this film except to say that it's more of the same and after seeing the Japanese versions and the US re-makes it's just not that scary anymore. It just seems like a series of stitched together scenes loosely connected by the fact that a spooky-ass woman with black eyes, a chalky white face and long hair is making sounds like a geiger counter. For variation, sometimes it's her son. And sometimes the people she is scaring are Japanese and sometimes it's Sarah Michelle Gellar and Amber Tamblyn. I suspect that the key to enjoying the franchise is just to pick one strand - the US or Japanese and stick with it. To be sure, I admire the industriousness of director Takashi Shimuzu who has directed all the Japanese Ju-on movies, the straight-to-video versions and the US remakes, you've got to wonder when he'll get bored of this increasingly boring series. Far from a grudge that will not be sated, this is turning into a franchise that simply won't die.

THE GRUDGE 2 is already on release in Brazil, Latvia, Lithuania, the US, Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, Estonia, Turkey and the UK. It opens in Australia, Thailand, Denmark and Sweden next week. It opens in Singapore, Finland, Norway, Germany, Italy and Iceland in November and in Venezuala, Belgium and France in December.