STACK #183 Jan 2020

CINEMA FEATURE

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If director Nicolas Pesce’s reboot of Japanese horror film The Grudge is half as scary as the house he chose to shoot it in, then prepare for a terrifying ride. Words Gill Pringle GHOST STORY

“The answer in simple,” she says. “I thought the script was brilliant.” Barely 30 years old, Nicolas Pesce is hardly a newcomer to the horror genre, having already directed and written cult favourites The Eyes of My Mother and Piercing . Yet even he finds himself surprised by his choices. “I was terribly of afraid of horror movies as a kid, which is why I think I'm making horror movies now,” he says, psychoanalysing himself. “My mom literally made a VHS tape of The Sixth Sense with all the scares cut out of it for me,” he recalls. “And so probably the anticipation of what those scares were that she had cut out was the scariest thing for me. Sixth Sense did it to me every time. It was horrible. “But, looking back, it was because I was so afraid of horror movies as a kid, that I became a filmmaker. I realised what the movies were that moved me the most and gave me the strongest

I n this latest reimagining of the J-Horror classic Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) – which spawned the 2004 US remake (also directed by Takashi Shimizu) – we again revisit a house haunted by a vengeful ghost, cursing all who enter with a violent death. When STACK visited the spooky dwelling in the suburbs of Winnipeg, Canada, last year, even the cast were a little on edge – including Australia’s usually cheery Jacki Weaver. “I won't be able to watch this, that’s for sure,” she laughs as we chat on the deck of the Gothic monstrosity, all damp basements and darkened

rooms. Even the crew and lights don’t displace the haunted air. “Watching frightening films is not part of my recreation. The last scary film I saw was When a Stranger Calls in the '70s, but I've made two other really frightening films and I haven't seen either of them yet,” says Weaver, alluding to Bird Box and Haunt . Even her co-star, horror veteran Lin Shaye, hasn’t been able to persuade her otherwise. “But it's nice to have a frightening

Andrea Riseborough in The Grudge

reaction, and it was always scary movies. Like the original Grudge or The Ring , neither of which I could watch as a kid because they were way too scary. “As a result, my tastes leaned more towards late ‘60s and early ‘70s horror movies, like Psycho and Rosemary's Baby ,” says the writer- director who grew to love the original Japanese Grudge franchise. “The beauty of the Japanese Grudge films is that it's an anthology. They're not sequels of each other. Every single movie is a different story, different characters and different crime. And I saw an opportunity – rather than remake the original Grudge , to just make a new one. There’s a through-line throughout all the Grudge films in a non-linear narrative where the story plays out of order using the key character archetypes that were always present.” Hence, Pesce decided to write and direct an entire new Grudge for 2020. “We don't have any of the same characters as the old Grudges. As with the Japanese films, it's a new set of families, a new crime. With this, we're furthering the anthology and extending the canon.”

film that's also got some intellectual depth. The characters all have substance and an arc; they’re not just there for the purpose of gore, which I think probably is what makes them more frightening. They're people you can relate to that really exist, instead of being daffy blondes who run into garages with people with chainsaws,” says Weaver, who plays Shaye’s character’s euthanasia nurse.

It's nice to have a frightening film that's also got some intellectual depth

“I hate being frightened. I can understand why it gives a lot of people a thrill to be frightened, but I've always said, I don't need terror to be delighted. I get enough terror in my work. Standing in the wings eight times a week waiting to go on stage is frightening enough. That’s enough adrenaline to last me forever.” So why The Grudge ?

The Grudge is in cinemas January 30

14 JANUARY 2020

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