It's a predictable view from 'Secret Window'

This review is being posted as part of Blog Cabins' 30 dAyS oF cRaZy blog-a-thon! The blogosphere is a tad more insane this month than usual!

Secret Window (2004)
Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, and Maria Bello
Director: David Koepp
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Mort Rainey (Depp) is a novelist on the verge of a burn-out when his life gets even worse: A maniac (Turturro) accuses him of plagiarising a story he wrote, and begins an ever-increasing campaign of violence and terror against Mort and those closest to him.


Based on a short story by Stephen King, "Secret Window" features a number of themes related to the darker side of the basically lonely professional life that every writer leads... and if one is familiar with those themes and how they've played out in King's works, where this movie ultimately goes is very predictable.

However, the cast is made up of competent actors--Depp once again shows what an excellent actor he is, and Turturro was downright frightening in most of his scenes--the script is well done, and the director clearly knows how to use all the tools in his bag of tricks to keep the suspense up.

Even if I realized early on that I was watching yet another movie about a crazy writer being stalked by himself, through a twisted part of his broken mind that has taken over, Koepp delivered a film that kept me watching due to nicely staged scenes and by managing to provide enough twists to keep me wondering if I was wrong about my assumptions. The script was also well enough written that I cared about the characters. I didn't want Johnny Depp's beleaguered writer to be a maniac, because
I liked him, and I certainly didn't want Maria Bello to end up in a shallow grave. It's one of those rare mystery movies where there really is no mystery if you've seen enough of them, but it is still well-crafted enough to make it worthwhile.

And it could be that this film was predictable to me because I've seen so many horror, mystery, and suspense films. Maybe viewers who haven't watched quite as many movies, or are as familiar with Stephen King's Package of Repeated Themes and Stereotypes would be taken aback by the "shocking twist ending."

Chan slapsticks his way through supernatural action

The Medallion (2003)
Starring: Jackie Chan, Julian Sands, Claire Forlani, and Lee Evans
Directors: Gordon Chan and Doug Aarniokoski
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When a criminal mastermind knows as Snakehead (Sands) kidnaps a young boy as part of an effort to unlock the mystical secrets contained in an ancient medallion, a Hong Kong detective (Chan) and an Interpol agent Nicole (Forlani) must set aside their past differences to save the child and apprehend Snakehead. When Eddie becomes the recepient of the powers granted by the medallion, it seems like stopping Snakehead will be a cinch--but Snakehead proves that one should never count a villian out until... well, one should just never count a villian out.


"The Medallion" is a delightful, fast-paced action movie with a strong fantasy and martial arts flavor. The effects shots may not be the best at all times, but the actors are all excellent in their roles (even if Evans is a bit too irritating as the comic relief character), with Sands and Forlani both being particularly fun to watch in the film. Chan, although I am now certain that age has started to slow him down, is as always the solid star around which the film resolves, delivering his usual variety of stunts, fights, and comedy... this time, enhanced with special effects.

Why ask why when the ghosts start killing?

Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003)
Starring: Noriko Sakai
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Famous horror actress Kyoko Harase (Sakai), her unborn child, a TV news-magazine crew, a couple of high schoolers, and a handful of random bystanders fall victim to the curse of angry, homicidal ghosts.


"Ju-on: The Grudge 2" is one creepy movie. From beginning to end, it's got an unsettling air about it, and the ghost attacks are all nightmarish and flawlessly executed.

What is not so flawlessly executed is the script. It's no problem that the story is told out of sequence, but about 2/3rds of the way through the movie, the timeline completely disintergrates. Until the two high-schoolers are introduced (who I assume must have been around in the first Japanse "The Grudge" to which this film is a sequel), all the pieces fit on a timeline that makes sense--Kyoko and the filmcrew are cursed when they viisit the house for a TV segment, and the ghosts then start picking them off, just as they did in the American versions of the tale. But, the teeny-boppers must have been cursed by the house BEFORE the filmcrew went there... although one of them appears to never have escaped it, yet she's walking around and....

The bit with the school girls makes no sense when viewed on the timeline of the film, or as a seperate event. It further causes the question to arise: How and why Kyoko was targeted by the ghosts in the first place? What exactly was the whole baby and birth thing about, particuarly when viewed in the context of the ending? And why WERE those school girls in the film? Is there a law that every Japanese horror film must include at least one girl in a school uniform?

Either the plot is so tangled that it trips over itself (bad writing) or Simizu is assuming that everyone in the audience has seen the first film in the series and he further intends to explain the tangle in a third movie (bad filmmaking), or I'm not as smart as I like to think I am (not possible). Whatever the reason, this movie is a masterful excersize in makiing the viewers feel freaked out, but a failure as an excersize in story-telling. The posives and negatives here end up placing this film on the very low end of average.

I also think this will be the last entry in "The Grudge" series that I'll be sampling. The best thing about these movies appears to be their marketing campaigns.

(That said... the birth scene and its aftermath is one that will stay with me for awhile....)

Double Feature Spook Spectacular: 'The Grudge' and 'The Grudge 2'

I'm reviewing the first two American installmentss of Takashi Shimizu's "The Grudge" series in this post. Tomorrow, I'll be posting the review of the Japanese "The Grudge 2," which seems to follow on the events described in these movies. I don't know if that's just me trying to impose order on chaos, as I don't have the impression Shimizu gives a rip about story continiuity. (And I'm not likely to seek out the original Japanese "The Grudge." The awfulness of these three films has been quite enough for me.)


The Grudge (2004)
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr and Medaka Ikeno
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

In "The Grudge," Americans living and working in Tokyo fall victim to curses and angry ghosts tied to a house in the city. The most recent victim (Gellar) sets out to discover the cause of the deadly and nightmarish events and hopefully to prevent the fate that is occuring to everyone around her to her.


While "The Grudge" features some interesting visuals surrounding the ghosts in the film, the scares are all of the "gotcha" variety, the script is disjointed and badly done, and the activities of the ghosts and the curse never really make any sense.

It's okay to have a crazy ghost with strange motivations. It's even okay to have a ghost with motivations that SEEM to be understandable but which are ultimately revealed not to be. It's okay to have a ghost that may have been a victim in life but which is also completely and utterly batshit crazy and evil. It's even okay to have all of those.

But what is not okay is to have a ghost (and subsequently a ghost story) that seems to have no rhyme or reason to it. Sure, the characters might die horrible deaths without ever knowing what's going on, but the audience should be left with at least an inkling that there is some underlying cause for the haunting and ghosts actions other than a writer/director being too lazy to think his own story through properly.

"The Grudge" is a ghost movie done in by laziness on the part of the creator, and no amount of CGI effects and cheap scares can make up for that laziness. Unfortunately, things only get worse in the sequel. It's a shame that a good cast (including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sam Raimi and Bill Pullman) are wasted on such a bad movie.



The Grudge 2 (2006)
Starring: Amber Tamblyn, Arielle Kebbel, Matthew Knight, Edison Chen, Sara Roemer, and Teresa Palmer
Director: Takashi Shimizu
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

The "most haunted house in all of Japan" continues to curse victims... and now it's gone global.


"The Grudge 2" is like the original. It's got the same good parts, and the same bad parts, only moreso in both cases. The curse and its motivation still makes absolutely no sense, nor does the reasons for why the angry ghost targets who she does. In fact, ambiguity is even worse in the sequel, because it appears that the ghost isn't just tied to the house, but that it will go anywhere and target anyone... even people who have absolutely nothing to do with the house or anyone who has ever been in it. Further, it appears that the ghost isn't just the original ghost, but that all its victims are somehow being it. Or something. Or maybe another restless, tormented spirit was house-sitting while the O.G. (Original Ghost) is globetrotting.

Without spoiling too much, this sequel features not just one tale of mysterious hauntings but three--one with Amber Tamblyn and Edison Chen trying to unravel the curse a few days after the events of the first movie; one with Arielle Kebbel and Teresa Palmer a few years later when some mean school girls use the house for a bit of hazing; and a Chicago apartment building where, a few weeks after the ill-fated hazing in faraway Tokyo, teenaged Sara Roemer and her little brother Matthew Knight notice their neighbors start behaving strangely. The film moves back and forth between them, and toward the end of the film it does so in a fashion that seems truly random, and really confuses the viewers sense of what is happening when. I've seen at least two reviews claim the three stories don't connect, and I can only assume that the critics either didn't see the last few minutes of the movie, they weren't paying close enough attention, or they weren't expressing clearly enough the fact that the three stories don't connect in any way that makes sense.

And that is the problem with "The Grudge 2". Nothing in any of the stories feels properly grounded in even a shred of internal logic. There's no reason for "the curse" to target some of the people it does--like every resident on a floor of a Chicago apartment building. Stuff just happens because it's time for something spooky. There are plenty of spooky developments and even more "gotcha!" scares (although a couple of those were more laugh-inspiring on a "Evil Dead" level than actually scary... and I don't think they were going for comedy).

Oh... and here's an illustration of why your Mom told you to always put on clean underwear in the morning.


You never know when you might get caught in a phone booth with a ghost looking up your skirt.

'The Messengers' are not bringing tidings of joy

The Messengers (2007)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, John Corbett, and Penelope Ann Miller
Directors: Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Sixteen-year-old Jess (Stewart) moves wth her parents and little brother to a remote farm where everyone hopes to get a fresh start after a very difficult couple of years. Soon after they move in, strange events start occurring in the house, and they increase to terrifying levels after Jess' father (McDermott) hires Burwell, a mysterious but friendly drifter (Corbett), to help out around the farm. Will Jess discover the secret behind the nightmarish events that only she and her little brother seem to witness before it's too late?


"The Messengers" is one of those movies that has gotten a bad rap from moronic critics who can't seem to recognize when they're not the target audience for a film. Yes, there is nothing new or innovative in this film, nor is the plot particularly clever--anyone who's seen more than three haunted out movies KNOWS that Burwell is somehow the key to the haunting of Jess and the house. However, for the target audience--which is 12-14 year-old girls who want something spooky for the slumber party, this is just about the perfect movie. (The protagonist is a girl who is having a hard time getting along with her parents, who no one listens to, and who saves the day almost by herself. It's also a film that ultimately carries with it a very strong message of family values and that parents and children still love each other even if they sometimes argue.)

Even seasoned ghost movie watchers will find something to like about this flick--so maybe it's worth watching if you're a parent with a girl in the house who likes creepy movies--as it moves along at a brisk (if predictable pace) and there are some nicely staged chills and some even better "gotcha!" scenes. (Say what you will about this movie being derivative, but directors Pang-Chun and Pang understand that if you're going to have spooky music playing on the soundtrack and/or set up a creepy circumstances, you better have it pay off. Too many PG-13 and even some R-rated horror flicks these days seem to think that all you need to do to make a horror movie is to build suspense and then go "ha-ha... just kidding!")

There's another thing the filmmakers recognized here that more creators need to take to heart: That last second shock, after the viewer things the horror is all over with, that was so startling when it first came into vogue some 35-40 years ago is no longer shocking. It's now so expected that it's often annoying because it is so obviously tacked on. Thankfully, the creators involved with "The Messengers" knew to avoid THAT cinematic cliche, and they ended up giving their movie an ending that wrapped the story and themes of the film perfectly. The climactic events of the film plus its denouement are worth a full point on the ratings scale by themselves, as we go from very scary to very peaceful.