Absolute Horror Film Forum

They're bringing out a Grudge 3 - YEAH, I can feel more sarcastic humour coming from the Scary Movie guy's .

Well Matt, I have to say that, on the whole, I agree with you. And let me put you right the Original of Shutter isn't Japanese it's Thai. Most of the time I would favour the original film over the remake.

I think one of the problems Hollywood has with the Asian films is their disjointedness (keeping it more along the lines of chapter layouts in novels), this keeps the viewers mind active and adds to the air of mystery / suspense and leaves them thinking, what's going on. America likes to try and smooth this out and make the movie flow in one, so they rewrite the story to remove flashbacks - or to limit them - they even go to the lengths of removing characters and scenes entirely (which I don't mind as long as it tells the story well - though in most cases it loses something along the way.)

Another thing with America is there heavy reliance on computer generated F/X (which, in themselves, can mess up a film). In the case of pulse the ghost's were just actual people with white make-up (WOW - Scary, you say - well yeah, thanks to the ambiance created by the director and his group) and the American remake were computer generated electric entities (which, though they looked good, you knew they were just pixels - when are the guys gonna realise we react better if the ghosts / monsters have a more human / realistic feel to them)

Then there's the subject matter, like you said they changed shutter, they changed Pulse also. In the Japanese version the afterlife was starting to seep into the real world because it was overcrowded, where as in the American version a computer program opens a rift to another dimension and the beings come through.

However, I have to say that I don't really hate the remakes - they're usually good enough to pass a few hours on a winters or rainy night, so what the hell. And as movies in their own right they're not too bad (but like always there are exceptions).

I enjoyed both Grudge's. I enjoyed the American Ring 2 more than it's predecessor and I didn't mind the remake of Pulse, as this kept more to the idea of the Title than the original did - I would've renamed it "The Secret Room" as it was more based around this than computers / technology / electricity.

The choice, as they say, is yours - there'll be somebody out there that prefers the remakes, let us know your thoughts.

Come join me - We ALL float down here.
PENNYWISE - Stephen