Thread by @delaneykingrox

I just watched the English version of The Grudge and I really want to remake the hell out of it.

And what sucks is I cannot find the original on streaming to compare back.

This version feels odd to me because the editing seems all over the shop to me, and moments that require time to soak in the character's experiences just seems hacked off.

A character steps on something off frame, we get the sound and she looks down. Now we should get a cut to see what she trod on, because her attention is our attention. But no, the camera remains locked off at her chest height for a few beats more.

This is a film which I would approach with a very careful focus on what the camera is doing, and the space I frame the actors. It is about a house, and the peoples connection to that house.

Symbolically it is about that stain you cannot get out, the taint of rage and evil. And that is something to carry across to the journey the characters take. Lets see them as that stain sinks into their psyche, and changes their world around them.

For me, you need to establish the house for the viewer in the same way The Shining and Alien/Aliens (but not its sequel) acheive. The cuts work against that.

I want to follow the heroine, feel the grudge getting under her skin, changing her emotions, her relationships her character. I want to see her world close in on her, moment by moment as it draws her to the point where she is tested.

Taking more time to establish her as a character full of joy, humor, sexuality and adventure, someone we wanna know more about. She is close to her colleagues, trusted, carefree.

Then she goes into the house.

Weirdly the film cuts away before the flames and we don't see what could have been a shattering moment where she seems to have one, but then the house is saved, and she is arrested and pulled away. But instead we get that twist in a single sentence delivered offhand. Damn it.

I like active heroines, and though she does go find some of the clues, it still is very much handed to her by the policeman.

I want her to obsess, to find out what happened and to try and find out how to stop it. Then actively try.

Sarah Michelle acts the hell out of her part, but unfortunately is only given one scene to really do anything other than look scared. She needed more meat to get her teeth into, and establish the character before she is faced with this horrific situation.

And with SMGs background at the time of trying to break away from being typecast as Buffy, I would have wanted to take more time to anchor the new character to our imaginations.

She needed quirks. And we get a taste of her being a planner in the first scene. It would have been great to explore a more organised, rational, fastidious woman. One who is exact, and precise and needs things to be just so. Perhaps almost pathologically so.

Perhaps give her glasses, rounded shoulders, more of a different physicality to really break her away from the image we have of her as the tough girl who beats up spooky things.

Having a passive, neat, well mannered girl slowly morphing into an angry, superstitious, neurotic mess? Well that's a journey I wanna take with her.

By the end, the boyfriend should be more scared of her than the house.

I dunno, I think in the end it just doesn't take us on the journey with it. It hops around from character to character and it all feels like exposition with no destination.

Considering the trailer to the original aline made me shit myself and terrified me for literally years, this was a downer

I think there is a lot that can be done with this set up, and it needs to begin with the first two scenes deleted. Start on the heroine taking up the job. Cleaning up. Fixing things. Weird stuff happens but nothing too obvious. She is curious what happened to the girl before

She is fighting against the house. She cleans, neatens, organizes... but its chaos again.
She gets clues. She finds things. She is curious.
She has a chance to leave but wants to stay to care for the woman, and is worried about the boy she glimpses now and again.

And it becomes her will against the house. She cleans and neatens. Organises. Fixes.

Chaos.

She gets flustered. So she cleans. Neatens. Organises.

Chaos.

She is getting angry.

But she cannot let it rest. She cleans, and neatens. Looks for information. Cleans again. She won't give up.

The two day care job extends to days. To a week. The family can't be reached. So she cleans. Neatens. Trys to lure the boy out.

She finds herself doing...

...strange things when she gets angry. She chokes it down. Focuses. Cleans. Organi.... fuck this! Fkfkfkfkfkfkrkkrkrkrkrkrkrkd

And that energy is what fuels the grudge. Anger spawns anger.

And that is how it twists. The bad things in the house are caused by anger. The grudge magnifies it. It bleeds it. And it feeds off it.

The film feels like some rope being twisted and twisted and twisted tighter and tighter until the threads start to snap.

The sounds of the house do too. Creaking and warping of wood. The walls seem to be closer. The shots tighter. The character is snapping.

She finds strands of hair.
She starts coiling her hear absentmindedly.
In the shower, she feels fingers in her hair.
She starts pulling at her hair until she has clumps.
She grabs a knife, twists it into ropes and slices through it.
She cuts off her hair in a rage.

As we build, she is connected more and more to the spirit of the girl. Obsession grows. She is echoing the actions of the past. Feeling them. Living them.

By the end we NEED something to give. Something to break. And that is when all hell breaks loose and the fire happens

The journey is about not being able to let go of the past. Losing yourself to anger. To blind rage, to hatred. To want revenge even after revenge happens.
Swallowing down wont work. She cannot give up on people, or on things. Neither can the house.

Like a grudge, it burns and harms but it never goes away.

You know what?

Gimme Sarah Michelle Gellar and a decent budget and let's go again for a mini series.

:)

Welp, this has been my filmy type stuff for the day.

I work full time making art for games, so my screenwriting career has to be drunken tweets like these. Help support my drunkenness* by buying me a coffee

ko-fi.com/dellak

*actually I hardly drink due to food intolerances. It probably will go towards coffee.