This article was published on 10.28.04.

Takashi Shimizu directs this Americanized version of his overrated 2003 creep show Ju-on: The Grudge as numerous cheap jolts substitute for sheer spookiness. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a caregiver in Tokyo whose first job takes her into a home in which a curse is manifested in and passed along by the ghosts of people who die in a fit of powerful rage. A nearly catatonic elderly lady, black cat and eerie child apparition all are players in a thin story that hops back and forth in time. The Ring, which also was Americanized from a Japanese original, was more convoluted but much more fresh and harrowing.