Metacritic reviews

Slightly less frightening than the original, but it's still a scary psycho-horror that effectively replicates its bleak and crisp shocks.

It's effectively frightening. It's just not the kind of frightening that stays with you very long, unless of course someone decides to make the same movie . . . yet again.

A horror film that consists of virtually nothing but don't-go-in-the-attic suspense scenes strung together with a reasonable degree of brooding mood and a minimum of logic.

The overdetermined approach preempts character shadings or social subtext-just compare Hideo Nakata's original "Ring," which tapped its dread from viral-replicant mass culture and its pathos from a broken home, or Nakata's "Dark Water," which channeled the sorrow, guilt, and paranoia felt by a young divorcée mired in a custody battle.

Less a film than a terror delivery system, The Grudge repeatedly shows off Shimizu's technical chops, but never gives viewers a reason to care about or identify with the victims.

American audiences have seen Ju-On. And The Grudge just goes to show why remaking it is such a frivolous idea: What's the use in wasting so much energy if the filmmakers aren't going to fix what was wrong with the movie in the first place?

Less scary than creepy, The Grudge may have lost some oomph in the translation from Japanese to English, and the desire for a PG-13 rating probably muted the violence and perhaps the scares.

Despite the tighter rewrite and the slicker production, it's obvious that Shimizu is still searching for what scares him, and until he finds it, he doesn't stand--ahem--a ghost of a chance of frightening us.

Isn't art, but as date-night fright flicks go, it's effective.

Viewers of this Sam Raimi-produced, sub-"Amityville" scarefest are likely to hold the real grudge.