The Films of 2004: Incident at Loch Ness

SYNOPSIS: A film crew making a cinematic biography of legendary director Werner Herzog follows him as he embarks on his latest project: a documentary, shot on location in Scotland, about the Loch Ness Monster. For the first time in his career, Herzog is accompanied by a Hollywood producer, Zak Penn. Penn feels that Herzog’s ideas will prove even more compelling if backed up by manufactured drama, like monster sightings and busty sonar operators in bikinis. This conflict about the vision for the film creates tension on the boat, the Discovery 4, as Herzog attempts to discern the truth about Nessie.   While Herzog attempts to remain committed to his vision and Penn takes every opportunity to spice it up, something strange happens. A real life sea monster appears, and threatens the ship and filmmakers.

COMMENTARY: Incident at Loch Ness (2004) is a mock-documentary from director Zak Penn that stars legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog. The movie is part horror movie and part comedy.  But like the best of the horror genre, the film goes beyond scary scenes to comment on something really important, in this case, film-making. Specifically, Incident at Loch Ness involves an important, seemingly eternal debate. Is film merely commerce? Or is film something greater. Is it art?  This question is pondered in the mock-doc through two  primary characters, or more aptly, two personalities. They are mirror images.

Herzog is the resolute, thoughtful artist, a man who makes movies to explore ideas and enhance not merely knowledge, but self-knowledge. His movie within the movie -- a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster -- is conceived by the filmmaker as an exploration of the differences between “fact and truth.”  For Herzog, the film isn’t about discovering a monster at all; it’s about discovering why the monster’s existence matters to so many millions of people. Herzog wants to explore what it is about man and his nature that demands the creations of legends like Big Foot or Nessie.  Why do we believe? Why do we want to believe?  These are the questions that consume Herzog.

By contrast, Zak Penn plays the film’s craven producer, a man who feels that Herzog’s movie can only be bankable if there’s some manufactured drama.  Thus he casts a gorgeous, busty Playboy model as a ship’s "sonar operator.' Thus he has a prop man create a fake “Nessie” monster for the documentary crew to encounter. Now, pity poor Zak Penn, because he plays, for lack of a better word, the film’s villain; the individual who wishes to reduce every one of Herzog’s brilliant, cerebral concepts to crass commercialism.  Since he is the director of Incident at Loch Ness, and he casts himself as the voice for film as commerce here, audiences must assume that Penn is aware that he will be pilloried by critics and audiences as being representative of everything that is wrong with Hollywood filmmaking. In fact, Penn is commenting on Hollywood filmmaking. He is using his own name to expose a certain brand of producer, despite the fact that a certain segment of the audience will simply think he is playing “himself.”

He’s actually taking a bullet for the team, and for the movie. But it's a smart move, because Penn's presence and world-view brings better into focus Herzog's world-view. Incident at Loch Ness is presented as a documentary about the search for the Loch Ness Monster, but that surface description tells little of the movie’s style and substance. This is really a film about the gap between independent filmmaking and Hollywood filmmaking, between film art, and film as product, or commerce. The film is sharp, funny, exciting, and caustic in its observations about filmmaking. Finally, Incident at Loch Ness reminds us that what some filmmakers deem “reality” may not be real at all. Reality may simply be that which sells best.

Incident at Loch Ness is funny in part because of the dead-pan approach of all the actors. The result is a film that, at times, feels alarmingly authentic. But here’s the distinction: it feels Hollywood real. If you’ve spent anytime interfacing with Hollywood personalities, you likely know what I mean. I remember, a few years back, being on a conference call with a notable “star” and listening, aghast, as he discussed at length -- during a story session -- how he could not be photographed sitting down, or wearing certain attire.  This went on and on, as he promised to give “110 percent” to the project…so long as he wasn’t seated at the time.

You get to Hollywood, and achieve a certain level of success, and you start to feel entitled to make selfish and weird demands like that. Demands that don’t necessarily concern the project (the art), but rather your image, your career.  In Incident at Loch Ness, Penn brings in "acting" personalities who are like that: a model and an actor who are looking to get screen time and further their individual careers.  For them, the project isn’t really about art, or about ideas. It's about leveraging a credit to maximum profit. When he discovers that a boat’s engine is too loud for filming, he demands either a new boat, or a transplanted engine that will be less noisy. The poor ship’s captain who must accommodate -- or be fired -- has about a day to perform that switcheroo.  Penn bullies him into compliance.  And when the ship’s radio proves too noisy too, Penn orders an underling to have it removed from the ship, despite the fact that the radio is a necessity in case of a crisis on the water. Nothing, in other words, will stop Penn from getting his way.  And his way includes renaming the ship, assigning the crew uniforms (with the word expedition misspelled), adding tits and ass in the form of the ship’s sonar director. He even stages false Nessie sightings. “I distorted things so they would be more dramatic,” Penn reports when things go disastrously awry on the expedition.  He even retreats to the stance that cinema consists of mostly “lies,” but clearly he has misunderstood the amazing career of Herzog, whom Penn holds at gunpoint during one sequence.  

Herzog may stage a “lie” in a (fiction) film to get at some point or deep truth, but Penn wants to lie in a documentary to make it more bankable. He’s incapable of seeing the difference between those two approaches. He doesn't strive for authenticity.  He isn't trying to make a point.  He wants the movie to be a hit. Herzog proves to be a great and powerful presence in the film. He exudes gravitas and authenticity because every student of film understands what he has gone through -- and put others through -- to achieve his artistic vision.   Again, when Herzog pushes people it isn’t for more money, or for fame, it’s ostensibly because he is exploring something. It’s because he wants to discover or know something. There’s something terribly ironic, and indeed Hellish, about his journey here. Herzog suffers not in the pursuit of art, but for commercialism, at the hands of Penn. Perhaps this is why he sees the documentary, during its final moments, as a horror show; as something "doomed from the beginning," that "didn't want to come to life."

Incident at Loch Ness is clever too, in the way it proves self-reflexive. Herzog opines, early on, that mankind “need monsters.” This movie provides not one, but two monsters.  First, there’s Nessie – which attacks the ship -- and secondly, there’s Penn himself. Movies need monsters too, the film suggests.  The audience could not appreciate Herzog’s character if if  did not witness it in direct comparison to Penn’s. The filmmakers need Penn to take that bullet for the movie, and to play the worst, most craven and crass producer imaginable. The audience couldn’t understand, perhaps, the value of a “typical Herzog-ian moment” if it didn’t have the anti-matter representation of its opposite, symbolized by Penn. It’s also quite ironic that Herzog is described, in the film, as having a reputation as a “dangerous” filmmaker for exploring worlds and ideas that are uncomfortable and difficult to capture on celluloid).  Because what Incident at Loch Ness proves so adeptly is that it is actually the film-as-commerce voice -- Penn -- who is truly dangerous. To make money, he risks everybody’s survival. People die because of the choices he makes on the documentary. Cinematographers may not be “cowards” according to Herzog, but that rule does not apply to entitled producers, apparently.

This review likely makes Incident at Loch Ness sound ultra-serious, but the truth is that the movie is both funny and tense, and finally a little scary and sad. The result? A life gets turned into a horror movie. Fortunately, not a “vulgar and pointless” one, as Herzog fears during the film’s conclusion.  Rather, a supremely entertaining and thoughtful one.

Movie Trailer: Incident at Loch Ness (2004)

Movie Trailer: The Village (2004)

Cult-Movie Review: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

SYNOPSIS: A nurse, Ana (Polley) gets off duty after a busy shift, goes home to her loving husband, and falls asleep, like she would on any normal day. But this is not a normal day. Ana awakes to blood-curdling terror as her husband is killed, and the zombie apocalypse begins. Ana flees her neighborhood, and joins up with a tough police officer, Kenneth (Rhames), Michael (Weber), a criminal, Andre (Phifer), and his very pregnant wife, Luda (Korabkina).  Desperate for sanctuary, they hide in Crossroads Mall, but meet up with a Mall security team led by C.J. (Kelly). An uneasy peace is forged, but the zombies are gathering outside the mall, and the end of the world is nigh.

COMMENTARY: More than fifteen years after its theatrical release, Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead is widely regarded as a remake that doesn’t suck. There's no reason quibble with that assessment. This remake is successful to such a degree because it adapts basic settings, lines of dialogue and the general premise of George A. Romero’s 1978 masterpiece, but then spins these element in a new and original direction.  Importantly, Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead does not feature the same main characters undertaking the same horrific adventure.  

This change leaves room for the remake to prosper; to create new personalities, and to explore different aspects of the zombie apocalypse. This film could actually be considered a “side-quel” as much as a remake if not for a few significant changes in the zombie nature, and mode of zombie virus transmission. The memory of the original Dawn of the Dead is honored with some well-placed in-jokes (like the department story, Gaylen Ross), and brief cameos from originals stars Scott Reineger, Tom Savini, and Ken Foree but the central occupation of this film is neither fan service, nor homage.  Instead, Snyder updates the zombie formula with scenes of epic, spectacular destruction, and frenetic, bone-jangling action scenes. Such jaw-dropping moments would not function adequately, however, if the characters did not matter. Fortunately, they do. Dawn of the Dead adopts from Romero its focus on people, on human beings, and the diverse responses to crisis that different people might legitimately have during an absolute breakdown of society.

This movie concerns, more anything else, questions about how people define morality in times of chaos.  When is the right time to kill someone who might be a threat? When is the right time to realize that you, too, represent a similar threat? Culturally speaking, this is not a small issue. In 2003, an America still grieving after 9/11 launched a pre-emptive war against Iraq because that foreign country could one day metastasize as a threat to our nation.  Similarly, today, there are those of us who want to wage a similar war against Iran on the possibility of what might, one day, be a threat. It is abundantly true that this Dawn of the Dead does not satirize conspicuous consumption, the social preoccupation of Romero’s Carter-Era work of art.  Yet that fact, does not mean it is devoid of commentary on humanity. In the immediate post-9/11 age, when Iraq was starting to turn towards chaos, this Dawn of the Dead could have focused on many ideas roiling the culture. But what Snyder’s remake seems to concern most deeply is the idea that people don’t remain “human” if they surrender their morality for the possibility of security, if they see in other people only eventual threats to our own survival. This Dawn of the Dead makes note that in a real crisis (forecasting Hurricane Katrina, to some extent), the U.S. government and/or military simply can’t come to the rescue for everyone, and many people will have to rely on their own abilities, and relationships, to survive the dawn. 

Here, one character, C.J. notes that “America always sorts its shit out.”  But that bumper sticker slogan falls by the wayside when rescue helicopters don’t come to the rescue, but just fly on past the mall. As the film’s characters reckon with the fact that their previous lifestyle can no longer be sustained -- “I wanted a mocha latte with cream!” complains one character -- a new order must be erected from the ruins of the old.  The problem, of course, is that the zombies represent a competing social order, and one of numerical superiority. None of these points are lingered on to the exclusion of thrills or entertainment, and this version of Dawn of the Dead succeeds admirably on the basis of its characters, for its dramatic twists and turns, and for its dedication to scaring the audience silly. 

There are some good horror remakes out there.  Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), and The Blob (1988) jump to mind. Dawn of the Dead (2004) earns a slot on that list.

In some ways, the most significant character in Dawn of the Dead is Michael, played by Jake Weber. He is an average sort of guy.  He’s worked a lot of jobs, been married, and is generally a reasonable fellow. He prefers building consensus. He doesn’t like confrontation. But when injured people arrive at the mall requiring medical aid, Michael changes from wanting to help others to wanting to immediately kill Frank (Frewer), a man who will, because of a bite, eventually become a zombie. For the moment, Frank is fine, however.   He is a father to Nicole (Lindy Booth), and wholly reasonable. He doesn’t want to be a danger to anyone. Yet Michael decides, preemptively, that he must be killed, and furthermore killed right now. On one hand, his view-point seems reasonable. Infection always ends in zombification, no exceptions. Frank will be a threat, and will attempt to kill the survivors. On the other hand, to pre--emptively kill a human being -- one with feelings, relationships, and a soul -- on the basis entirely of future danger, is representative of a kind of harsh, bunker mentality. Precautions can be taken instead. Frank can be contained, and pre-emptive murder is not actually necessary, or preferable. But people when people are afraid, they act out of cowardice and fear. The Bush Doctrine states that America can attack any country, preemptively, that it feels is a threat. If scared, it reserves the right to act out of that fear, and not fact.

Indeed, this is what occurs in the film. Frank is given his life, and Kenneth watches over him, in a locked mall shop, as death comes. Because of this, Frank is given the opportunity to say a tender farewell to his daughter. Something good came out of something bad. Later in the film, Michael is himself bitten by a zombie in a heart-wrenching scene and realizes that he has no place in the future, either. He doesn’t travel with the survivors to their destination, a distant island, but rather remains behind to watch “the sunrise.”  He shoots himself in the head before he can become a monster and imperil those he loves. But the important thing is that in this case, Michael chooses.  He makes the choice that, earlier, he would have expressly denied Frank.  Nobody pre-emptively kills Michael. No one pre-emptively puts a bullet in his skull. His own choice, though heart-breaking is respected by the others.

Dawn of the Dead is not specifically about the Iraq War of course. But it is about morality, and the mind-set -- the bunker mentality -- that permits pre-emptive strikes to be considered a valid option. Even during a zombie apocalypse, the film tells us, we can’t make choices based on a possibility of what might occur. Why? We’re all going to die one day, but in the meantime, we want “every single second,” as Frank notes, of life, on his death-bed. We want that last sunrise, the very one Michael affords himself.

Andre’s subplot also plays into this philosophy, this debate about the morality of a pre-emptive strike.  Andre fears that the others will kill Luda and his unborn child, because Luda is infected. So, quite dangerously, he hides the truth from the group. If Andre did not fear the pre-emptive murder of his family, Luda and the pregnancy could have been watched -- as Frank was watched – and Andre and Norma (Jayne Eastwood) need not have died.  So Andre’s fear of a pre-emptive attack on his wife and unborn child is, actually, the thing that led to so many deaths. Both the group, and Andre himself would have been safer with a policy of containment.

This Dawn of the Dead also features a leitmotif about the limits of military power, also an appropriate topic given the quagmire in Iraq, and the failure to get Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Initially, the survivors hold out hope that they will be rescued, and that all will be well. This interruption in their life-style is just temporary until the cavalry rides in. Or so they believe. They are disabused of that notion when a rescue helicopter flies by, and doesn’t even acknowledge their presence. All zombie movies are, in some sense, about the breakdown of infrastructure and an acknowledgement of government, military limits. This Dawn of the Dead takes that thought to its logical conclusion, however. In a time of total disaster, there is no rescue. People must fend for themselves because of the scale of the problem.

And Dawn of the Dead does a remarkable job exploring the scale of the problem. Snyder has been afforded technology and a budget that Romero never had.  He can thus show-case zombie multitudes, the likes of which have never been seen (at least until World War Z [2013]).  He artfully creates these sweeping long shots revealing the scope of the “invasion,” and the damage to neighborhoods and cities. It’s a stunning new take on the zombie apocalypse that makes it feel “real” in visual terms.  One of the film’s most amazing and resonant shots reveals two trucks in the dark of night, pummeled by an ocean of zombies that extends as far as the camera’s range.The film also lingers on long, overhead shots which first show us a satellite’s view of normality, and then show us that “normality” turned to utter chaos. This, as written elsewhere in the book, is the God's Eye Shot, or view. These visual compositions help the audience see why Dawn of the Dead benefits from a remake. Horror movies of this type can now depict an apocalypse with frightening reality; terms that the low-budget Romero films simply can’t compete with. That doesn’t mean that the classic films aren’t great (or that I don’t love them), only that the 21^st century gives filmmakers the opportunity to take on the zombie apocalypse from a new perspective. An update is warranted, because filmmakers have realized a new way the story can be told.

In the 2000's, there was a debate among horror aficionados about "slow" zombies vs. "fast" zombies. It matters not a whit.  With the right director at the helm, zombies can be terrifying in either mode, and the zombie hordes in this move fit the bill. But all of Dawn of the Dead’s remarkable visuals would not mean a thing if the drama among the characters did not work so well. These particular characters as very 2004 in a way, divided by the press and politicians in their beliefs on about every hot-button topic in American life.  Still, they are willing -- finally -- to put all that nonsense away for the common good.  The TV evangelist played by Foree attempts to take wedge issues -- abortion, gay marriage and so forth -- and use them to divide people.  The zombie apocalypse is God’s punishment for those “evils," and so forth. He is a stand in for the media, and the political campaigns of the day. Yet the films’ characters don’t stay divided for long, despite racial, ethnic, and even sexual orientation differences. One great aspect of the film is the manner in which the C.J. character develops. He begins as an obnoxious, condescending asshole -- a kind of stand-in for Night of the Living Dead’s (1968) Mr. Cooper -- but eventually he gets on board with the program, joins the community, and proves himself a courageous and even noble fighter.  In real life I probably wouldn't like C.J. at first, either, but by the film's end, I was hoping and praying he would survive the crisis. The filmmakers made him more than a redneck stereotype, and so, in the end, we root for him.

Similarly, Michael, goes from being reasonable to unreasonable to reasonable again, in a very realistic, very human way. For a while, his fear gets the better of him. There are few of us for whom that wouldn’t be the case, considering the circumstances. The only truly cardboard character in the film is Steve Marcus (Ty Burrell), a guy who doesn’t realize that the old order is shattered, and that he has to live in a new way. He is rich, indulged, entitled and obnoxious, and he can’t ever seem to get over that, as the 1%, he’s the most important person in the room.  Or any room.

The only aspect that diminishes Dawn of the Dead a bit is the post-credits sequence, which reveals the group’s catastrophic arrival at the island.  It is not necessary to see this attack of the zombies, when it could have been left entirely to our imagination what happened to Ana, Kenneth, Terry, and Nicole. It’s true that Night of the Living Dead features an absolutely cynical ending, with the death of Ben, so it is possible to interpret this Dawn’s ending as being right in tune with the Romero aesthetic. I don’t object to the fact that these characters might die, I just object to the fact that the film feels it needs to show us what happens. The important aspect of the narrative is life in the mall, and the escape from the mall…the hope for something better out there.  As in life, there may be nothing better out there, but again, that idea doesn’t need to be made concrete. I would have rather been left wondering about the fates of the characters of Dawn of the Dead, then spoon-fed the answer about the end of the world, and the presence of the zombies on that island.

Movie Trailer: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Beach Week: Movie Trailer: Open Water (2004)

Movie Trailer: AVP (2004)

Movie Trailer: The Babadook (2014)

Cult-Movie Review: The Grudge (2004)

Based on Ju-On (2002) -- which is actually the fourth film in the Japanese horror franchise -- The Grudge (2004) is the second big American film of the Japanese horror remake boom of the early 2000s.. 

In short, The Grudge is very much the Friday the 13^th (1980) to The Ring’s (2002) Halloween (1978).

Many of the creative elements of The Ring, in fact, are repeated in The Grudge (2004). 

For example, The Grudge, directed by Takashi Shimizu continues with the new (for America) horror paradigm that simply being present is enough to render one guilty in the eyes of the supernatural. One need not commit a significant wrong, beyond being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even more than that, The Grudge displays significant uneasiness with (then) modern technology such as VCRs and answering machines.

Similarly, certain visual symbols -- buzzing flies, an oval mirror, photographs, videotape imagery, the dead boyfriend, and a secret family trauma -- recur from The Ring to The Grudge. 

And yet, this is -- again much like the American slasher film examples I listed above -- not a case of “copying” or ripping off” another property. 

Operating within similar moral and structural parameters, The Grudge instead stakes out unique horror territory, and emerges as a successful work of art.

Although the film may not possess, in the final analysis, the raw power and terror of The Ring, The Grudge is nonetheless deeply creepy, and trades successfully on the notion that a trauma -- much like an answering machine message or a videotape recording -- can be replayed and re-experienced, only with horrific effect for the percipient. 

Psychological trauma, in other words, leaves behind a physical record that can be experienced by others.  

And by interfacing with it, you become part of the next, bloody chapter.

Especially inventive here is The Grudge’s complex narrative structure, which in a weird way moves backwards at the same time that it moves forward. 

The Grudge begins at a late point of attack with the arrival at the “grudge”-infected Saeki house by a nurse named Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar). 

It then moves, vector-by-vector back to the original source of the infection or trauma: the tragedy of the Saeki family. 

At the same time, Karen’s story draws towards its frightening conclusion.

The only realm in which the American version of The Grudge really falters is in its baffling omission of the one character that actually unloosed the rage in the first place, Takeo Saeki, sort of the “patient zero” in the grudge/curse progression I diagrammed above. 

Without his presence, the American version of the material feels somewhat incomplete, like we haven’t quite gotten to the core or meaning of this trauma that “never forgives, never forgets.” 

Despite this flaw, The Grudge successfully raises hackles, and again asks viewers to contemplate a world in which you can become a victim…just because of the room you happen to walk into.

“It will never let you go.”

An American student named Karen Davis (Sarah Michelle Gellar) interns as a care-worker in Tokyo and is assigned to take care of an old woman with dementia, Emma (Grace Zabriskie) following the disappearance of her previous care-worker, Yoko (Yoko Maki)

At Emma’s house, however, Karen discovers a strange child, Toshio (Yuya Ozeki), and a dark female spirit or presence.

After a stay in the hospital, Karen looks more deeply into the mystery of the house, and learns that Emma’s family -- who live there with her -- have all died.  The corpses of her son, Matthew (William Mapother) and daughter-in-law Jennifer (Clea DuVall) are discovered in the attic.  Also found is a severed jaw.

Karen  soon learns from Detective Nakagawa (Ryo Ishibashi) that three of his police detective friends who went inside the house have also died. 

She traces the string of murders back to an American professor, Peter Kirk (Bill Pullman), and learns that one of his students, Kayako Saeki (Takao Fuji) had a romantic obsession with him, an obsession that infuriated her husband, Taeko.

And Taeko, Kayako, and Toshio all lived in Emma's house...

“The whole time I was in that house, I felt that something was wrong.”

At the heart of The Grudge is brutal violence in the family. A father and husband, Takeo, believes that his wife, Kayako has been unfaithful to him with an American professor, Peter Kirk.  In a fit of rage, he murders her, and their little boy, Toshio. 

In that moment of rage, a curse or “grudge” is born that has a life of its own, and like a disease, reaches out to touch anyone who enters the infection zone, in this case the Saeki house. 

This is a relatively simple story, but The Grudge’s clever structure permits for it to take on more meaning and complexity than a linear telling might. 

Similarly, the American version of The Grudge features an element the Japanese films necessarily do not.  

Specifically, The Grudge trades in a kind of cultural “lost in translation” vibe. Karen and her boyfriend, Douglas (Jason Behr) are strangers in a strange land, and therefore unfamiliar with the city, the people, and the customs. We have seen this idea played out before in American movies, and I have called it  Innocents Abroad, in honor of Mark Twain. 

Films such as Daughters of Satan (1971), Beyond Evil (1980) and The House Where Evil Dwells (1982) are a few examples in which Americans overseas must cope with supernatural terror, as well as a lack of understanding of the culture they are visiting.  

In The Grudge, we get several shots of Karen standing on a train, walking a busy street, and then walking through an alleyway near the Saeki house. Strangers look at her with inscrutable expressions, and there is a sense that they know more than she does.Or that they understand the world in a different way than she does. 

This fact is pointed out early, when Karen and Douglas pass a shrine and observe a Buddhist ritual that helps the dead find peace. This is an important moment, but the Americans don't recognize it as one that has great significance in their own lives.

Karen's lack of understanding of Tokyo and its customs (spiritual and earthbound) is reflected in several shots that reveal her physically separated by barriers from fellow city-dwellers.  

On the train, for example, Karen is framed inside a silver frame (really hold-bars).  Before she enters the house, she is likewise positioned between two vertical bars, and so on. All these shots indicate Karen's "separate" nature not only from Tokyo, but from an understanding of her environs.

The same idea recurs later in the film with Jennifer. She goes shopping at a Japanese grocery store, and is at a loss about what items she should buy. She tells her husband, Matthew that she wants to return to America.

There’s a deep and unsettling feeling in The Grudge that arises not just from the “curse” but from the fact that Karen, Douglas and Jennifer are so far from home, and clearly don’t understand the “spirit” world in the same way that folks such as Detective Nakagawa might.  

Again, this is not a small matter given the time period in which The Grudge was released.  

America was locked in the War on Terror, attempting to bring democracy to foreign lands such as Afghanistan and Iraq.  But in the case of Iraq, at least, there was the sense that America didn’t fully understand what it was getting into; that ancient and deep conflicts between sects had not been accounted for in our war plans.  The Grudge connects with and capitalizes on this idea, of a Westerner confronting a world-view not, simply, of the West.

Perhaps more to the point, the terrible events of 9/11 itself seems reflected in the "evil" force working in The Grudge.  The ghost reaches out and destroys American lives, even though Karen is innocent and knows nothing of the events that created "the grudge.  After 9/11, America realized it wasn't separate from the world, or immune from danger and strife arising elsewhere in the world.  In a way, this is very much Karen's lesson and journey as well.

What struck me as most intriguing upon my recent re-watch of The Grudge is the manner in which the film connects “the grudge” -- a spiritual force -- to technology. 

On several occasions  during the film, we hear Susan leave a message on an answering machine, for example.  

And at one point, Detective Nagakawa watches video footage from a high-rise office building that features the ghost of Kayako.  

When one couples these instances of characters replaying moments recorded on machines, a connection to the Saeki family (and the curse) becomes apparent.  

The house or spirits, are also replaying moments from the past.  Near film’s end, Karen wanders into one such replay, seeing Peter’s final visit to the Saeki home.  We are thus asked to confront the idea that a ghost may be, simply, a replay of human rage, a strong emotion impressed on a place and that infects that place.

In the Japanese version of this tale, Ju On: The Grudge, the final scene alone revealed the source of the grudge, the force doing the actual killing. Little Toshio and Kayako had been seen throughout, but the climactic scene reveals Takeo, and intimates that as the final piece of the grudge “replay,” he is the one who kills the living.

Yet Takeo is missing, except in a brief black-and-white flashback, from the American version of The Grudge, and so some of the storytelling feels incomplete.  Toshio and Kayako died in the grip of rage.  They felt that rage, but it did not originate with them.  It originated with Takeo and his jealousy. By removing him from this film, that last piece is missing, and it is not clear precisely why the female ghost and the child ghost are attacking people.

And yet, The Grudge succeeds as an experience, as we watch the spread of the “curse” and come to the conclusion that it is inescapable. The most effective scene in the film involves Susan, and her night-time, office-building experience with the ghosts. A perfectly contained set-piece and a textbook example of splendidly-wrought, mounting suspense, the scene reaches to a crescendo of horror with the revelation that the ghosts are inside her apartment, and indeed, under her bed covers with her.

On a very simple level, The Grudge is about how rage touches people -- even people unconnected to that rage -- and ruins their lives. 

Just by being at the wrong place at the wrong time, people can suffer. This conceit seems like a perfect metaphor for the angry, violent culture we live in today, post-Aurora, post-Sandy Hook. 

Rage can reach out and grab any of us, at any time, and there’s no antidote, no societal cure for it.  

As The Grudge points out, guilty or innocent, we are all at risk of being "consumed by its fury."

Movie Trailer: The Grudge (2004)