The Grudge Provides A Terrifying Start to 2020

Sam Raimi is back, and this time he kicks 2020 off with a “twisted new take of the horror classic” with The Grudge. Raimi brings us back to the series of horror films with this fourth installment, arriving in theaters tomorrow, January 3.

The official sysposis for The Grudge reads as follows:

After a young mother murders her family in her own house, a single mother and detective tries to investigate and solve the case. Later, she discovers the house is cursed by a vengeful ghost that dooms those who enter it with a violent death.”

Raimi produces the Sony Pictures film, which teams him with director Nicholas Pesce. The Grudge stars Andrea Riseborough, Demián Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin with Lin Shaye and Jacki Weaver. For this iteration, the Raimi again takes his influence from the original, Japanese film Ju-On: The Grudge, which Takashi Shimizu both wrote and directed.

The Grudge terrifies audiences January 3

According to the studio production notes, “the first thing Pesce did was place the Grudge story on American shores for the first time, in a small town named. . . Cross River.” Despite the new location, the film remains eerily linked to the others:

There are some underlying things that make The Grudge work that are really specific in the setup in the original movies,” said executive producer Schuyler Weiss. “And if you play within those rules, then it automatically connects to the movies that have come before.  But it also gives you a lot of freedom, in terms of stories and characters.”

The spine-tingling story is told through a series of vignettes, which Pesce describes as “sort of a puzzle movie.  It’s always about figuring out how these things go together – learning hints from other people’s stories that might give you insight into another storyline.”

Be prepared to be scared – as Weiss tells us, “the most gory, visceral, shocking moments are the things these characters to do themselves and to each other.  That’s real horror.”

The Grudge hits theaters worldwide tomorrow, January 3.