GRUDGE MATCH

THE GRUDGE DIRECTOR AND STAR ON UPDATING THOSE VENGEFUL GHOULS FOR A NEW GENERATION

- BRYAN CAIRNS

SONY SCREEN GEMS IS NURSING another nasty Grudge. Inspired by the Japanese Ju-on films, the studio spawned its own American franchise, beginning with 2004’s The Grudge and its subsequent sequels, The Grudge 2 and direct-to-DVD release The Grudge 3. The movies typically revolve around victims tormented by vengeful spirits after stepping inside a cursed home. Rumblings of a fourth installment surfaced in 2011, but it wasn’t until July 2017 that director/screenwriter Nicolas Pesce (The Eyes Of My Mother) became attached to the project. A J-Horror enthusiast, Pesce intends to get under people’s skin by paying homage to the original Grudge, while elevating its reign of terror.

“What’s awesome about The Grudge is, starting with the earliest of the Japanese movies, the franchise is an anthology, meaning every movie is a new story, a new set of characters, a new place,” Pesce tells SFX over the phone from New York City Comic-Con. “In a world today where everything is getting remade, this franchise provides an interesting and unique opportunity to not really remake anything. We are kind of adding a new chapter to the canon. There’s room for new mythology in the franchise. What’s fascinating on a horror-mechanics level is you can’t beat the Grudge, in and of itself.

“What all the old movies showed you is you can go burn down a house, but now that house is Grudged,” he continues. “It’s the most communicative virus ever. It’s really contagious and you can’t beat it. I think what makes it fun cinematically is you are always going to have characters that are going to try. You have characters that might get close and might even think that they did finally beat it, but it’s always going to win. There’s something intriguing about that.”