We’re only single-digit days into 2020 and horror’s already seen the year’s first remake. Nicolas Pesce’s The Grudge is a “fresh” adaptation of Japan’s Ju-On, sidestepping the Sarah Michelle Gellar-led 2004 Americanization. As an impressed fan of Pesce’s previous works – black-and-white The Eyes Of My Mother and modern giallo Piercing – I’m not surprised by the filmmaker’s command over atmospheric hauntedness. Shadowplay is on par with James Wan in choice glimpses, it’s just a shame Pesce’s narrative is a sloppy, scattershot tangle of split hairs that minces tones between overlapped subplots. Scary in bursts blasted from an antique musket, waiting ages to manually reload another ghastly attack.

Andrea Riseborough stars as Detective Muldoon, the newest resident of a rural country town. Recently widowed after her husband’s losing battle with cancer, the ambitious investigator dives into the first case across her desk.