C.H.U.D.

31 Days  of Horror: Day 5

Have you seen C.H.U.D.?  Have you?  I remember getting excited for this one the very moment my friend explained the acronym: Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.  Of course I want to watch a movie about C.H.U.D.s!  Of course I want to discuss C.H.U.D.s!  Who wouldn't?

C.H.U.D. begins the way you always knew, deep in your heart, that it had to begin: with a high-end photographer getting edgy, socially important photos from the safety of his apartment.  Cooper (John Heard) is tired of taking fancy, well-paying fashion gigs, because professional photographers hate receiving monetary compensation out of proportion to the work they do.  Cooper wants to track down some homeless people he photographed last year, but he can't track them down --- and he's looked everywhere in his apartment.

I'm saying you're an unsympathetic dick, dick.

Meanwhile, Police Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) is in charge of the worst police precinct in the world.  That's not a plot point, it is just a conclusion I have reached from the fact that every police officer we see in this movie is either lazy, stupid, or a complete asshat.

...or all three

Captain Bosch is hushing up a series of missing persons cases, but one of them also happens to be his wife.  That's right, Bosch is covering up disappearances that are similar to his wife's.  No, he (probably) did not murder his wife.  Even more meanwhile, there is a savvy crime beat reporter who asks the police clever questions, like "What's going on, Bosch?"  The man is clearly driven to uncover an important story.  Beyond meanwhile, over in Meanwhileington, a filthy, greasy ex-con (Daniel Stern), who is running a soup kitchen for the homeless, decides to report some of his regulars as missing persons.

"You forgot to describe me as 'probably contagious'"

How are these seemingly disparate plot threads united?  By C.H.U.D.s, of course.  It turns out that Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers are eating (hint: cannibalistic) people, especially those who wander too close to the sewers.  Or, in the case of some of the homeless, those that choose to live in the sewers.

"Sure beats the coal mine we must have just emerged from"

But what does a C.H.U.D. look like?  C.H.U.D.-ish?  C.H.U.D.-derly?  C.H.U.D.-tastic?  All good guesses, and none of them are wrong.  Specifically, though, they look like this:

Now, all we need to know is what is causing these C.H.U.D.s to C.H.U.D. (yes, C.H.U.D. is a noun and a verb), and why the government is covering up our hot C.H.U.D. on C.H.U.D. action! their existence!

Let's talk about the acting in C.H.U.D., shall we?  There are some decent actors in this movie, after all.  Jon Polito, John Goodman, and (to a far lesser extent) Jay Thomas all make early career appearances, but they are extremely bit parts. 

Above: John Goodman, moments before the only time something in a movie ate him

The top-billed actor is actually John Heard.  I don't know why that is, since he is the whiniest character in the film and does the least good.  For my money, it is Daniel Stern's turn as AJ that deserved the limelight.  Not only is he the most reasonable character in the movie --- not counting his grooming habits, obviously --- but he has his own name, AJ, tattooed on his arm.

There aren't many good shots of it, but here's a cropped version:

That's right.  Not only does he have his own name as a prison tattoo, but it has lines coming out from it, like it's shining bright!  I don't know who thought of that, or what it means, but I fucking love it!  As far as his acting goes, Stern was competent in a movie full of awkward dialogue.  Christopher Curry was pretty terrible as Bosch, but he rocks a pretty nice cop 'stache.  I don't understand the early 80s and the insistence on giving Kim Greist work, but this is yet another movie that casts her as a supposedly beautiful and interesting love interest for the lead.  I haven't seen it work yet, but at least I did get to see her sprayed with blood this time.

With that vacant expression, this looks more like hazing than horror

Rounding out the notable cast, Sam McMurray did what he does best --- he played an unsympathetic asshole, and he did it perfectly.

C.H.U.D. is the only movie Douglas Cheek ever directed.  He apparently got the gig thanks to Daniel Stern and John Heard stumping for him.  Whatever the cause, he didn't do a very good job.  It's certainly not entirely his fault, but there isn't a single well-assembled scene in this movie.  There is no suspense or terror or horror.  Of course, this is a movie about Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, so it's probably pretty stupid.  But that doesn't explain why my favorite scene in the entire film is this one:

AJ is being tailed by Alligator Shirt.  AJ stops to make a call on a payphone.  Alligator Shirt hangs up the phone before AJ can dial (it was a close tail), grabs the change, and then eats it.  And then they just look at each other.  Not a word has been said during this entire exchange.

I couldn't stop laughing.  I actually rewound that part to make sure it really happened.  Stern's puzzled look, paired with the blank smugness of Alligator Shirt was so beautifully awkward.  I can guarantee that Cheek had something other than abject hilarity in mind when he filmed that scene.  But it is really fair to lay all the blame on the director?  After all, somebody wrote a script for this.

According to CHUDFacts (which is an interesting, if sad, read), large chunks of the movie were ad-libbed or rewritten by Daniel Stern and Christopher Curry (IMDb even lists them as uncredited writers).  Given how it turned out, I wonder if this was anything like Sam Jackson signing on for Snakes on a Plane?

"We signed on to make a movie about Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, dammit!"

Whatever the reasoning or background, this is a pretty dumb script, and the main source of entertainment is from the fact that there are things called C.H.U.D.s in the movie.

This is a horror movie, though, and C.H.U.D. does have "cannibalistic" creatures in it...how good is this movie by horror standards?  First of all, I am curious as to what makes these creatures cannibals.  We don't see C.H.U.D.s eating other C.H.U.D.s, we see them eating people; sure, we later learn that C.H.U.D.s are mutated people (who somehow all mutate the same way), but doesn't the description of them as "humanoid" kind of negate the cannibalism?  Am I being too nitpicky? 

Considering that I am not questioning them sharing the same wardrobe, the answer is "yes"

Anyway, while the title promises a fun horror experience for genre fans, there isn't much in the actual film itself.  If you are a fan of gore, there is one shot of a wounded leg, blood spattering out of a shower drain, and a C.H.U.D. head gets sliced off with a sword (that was conveniently in an apartment).  If you are into special effects, there still isn't much.  The C.H.U.D. costumes are quite obviously just gloves and masks, so very little of them are show on-camera.  For instance, this is the only unobscured shot of the C.H.U.D.s that ate John Goodman:

It's not bad, but if you have the C.H.U.D.s attacking a well-lit diner, we should see a little more.  The only way a film can get away without showing much of its monsters is if it does a great job setting a tone of suspense; it also helps if the story provides a lot of darkness and shadows.  This movie does neither.  So, gore and special effects are underwhelming...what about sex and violence?  Strikes three and four.  Little of either to be seen, and if there was some, it would probably be pretty comical.

BUT.

I truly believe C.H.U.D. is worth watching.  Is it dumb?  Yes.  Is it poorly made?  Unapologetically so. Is it a little slow getting to the C.H.U.D.s?  Definitely.  Despite all that, I think this movie is a pretty fun watch.  I might not recommend watching it alone and/or sober, but I think there is something lovably goofy at the core of this concept.  (Hint: that "something" is the acronym C.H.U.D.)

Total Recall (2012)

When I first heard that there would be a remake of Total Recall (1990), I was a little upset.  It might not be the most subtle movie (hint: Arnold), but it is a pretty awesome and ridiculous (hint: three-breasted lady) piece of action/sci-fi.  Why mess with a classic?  But then I thought it over.  This is a Philip K. Dick short story, so you could redo this film as a paranoid science fiction nightmare, like something Cronenberg would make.  Or you could play up the idea of someone not knowing their identity; it could be like The Bourne Identity, only in the future!  The only wrong way to remake Total Recall would be to try and out-action an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Hmm...that trailer makes it look like they made the wrong choice.

By the end of the 21st century, the Earth has been reduced to a wasteland, following large-scale chemical warfare.  Only England and Australia remain inhabitable, although they are a tad overcrowded.  The teeming masses of Australia commute to England to work low-end jobs, while native English get the higher paying leadership positions.  Naturally, that leads to some complaints from the Australian servant class, and some domestic terrorism/freedom fighting has broken out.  Times are tense, but I know what you are wondering.  How can people commute across the globe on a regular basis?  If you guessed via a tunnel bored through the center of the planet, you defied logic and guessed right!  Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is one of these menial Australian laborers.  While he has a home, a gorgeous wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale), and a job, he is unsatisfied.  He has recurring dreams of another woman, with them on the run together from the government.

He's married to Beckinsale, but dreams of Biel.  Quaid is an ungrateful bastard.

Quaid keeps hearing about a company called Rekall.  It's a place where they implant fake memories that seem totally real, but aren't.  Essentially, it's a way for a boring person to remember an exciting life that they never had the opportunity/balls to actually experience.  Quaid decides to give it a try, and opts for the "secret agent" special.  But that's when things get bad, very fast.  Quaid already had his memories tampered with!  Now he's on the run from the police for something he doesn't understand, his wife is trying to kill him, and it appears that dream girl is actually a real person?!?  Is this all in Quaid's head, or is it really happening?

I vote real.  My imagination wouldn't come up with that dumb hairstyle.

The acting in Total Recall (2012) is pretty mediocre.  Nobody is fantastic, but nobody hams it up, either (which is probably an upgrade from the original film).  In the lead role, Colin Farrell looked suitably confused and he was convincing in his action scenes.  This role doesn't play to his strengths (thick brogue and empathetic eyebrows), but he plays a generic hero well enough.  Kate Beckinsale took on the role of the primary villain, which is a change of pace for her.  She doesn't actually seem evil, so much as she is paramilitary with crazy eyes.

Exhibit A

More than anything else, Beckinsale was cast to look hot and perform action stunts, which she handles easily.  Her role isn't very deep, but she does run around a lot to distract you from that fact.  Jessica Biel plays the part of the "good girl," which for all intents and purposes has her running for her life whenever she's onscreen.  I keep wanting Biel to show off some acting talent, but she can't seem to get past "mild alarm" in this role.

ACTING!

Bryan Cranston once again plays an authority figure in a film, and once again underwhelms when he is given generic characters.  The man can obviously act, but his movie roles don't show it.  This is the first time I have seen Bokeem Woodbine in a role that wasn't obviously sinister; he was fine playing a character part, but I think he's got enough charisma to carry a more complex role in a big movie.  Bill Nighy makes an all-too-brief appearance, probably due to his history with the director.  I love Nighy, but he is awfully boring when he plays seemingly normal people, and that's what he was here.  Rounding out the noteworthy cast, John Cho played the owner/operator of Rekall, which is a surprisingly minor role that didn't really require a recognizable actor.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, they did bring back the prostitute character with three breasts.  She's played by Kaitlyn Leeb, and the extra breast appears to be fake.  Maybe.

This is only director Len Wiseman's fourth effort behind the camera (and his first since 2007), but it's hard to tell.  Wiseman (best known for the Underworld series) slips effortlessly back into glossy action movie-mode with Total Recall (2012).  There is a metric crap-ton of action in this movie, and it all looks great.

Although it sometimes seems like an excuse to check out his wife's butt

Wiseman is not known for his storytelling skills, though, and that shows.  Total Recall (2012) is effectively one long chase scene.  The smarter elements in the plot --- the mind games and the interesting science fiction aspects --- are lost among the countless shootouts and explosions.  When he slows down to play up some of the supposedly less exciting elements, they're pretty cool, but sadly underused.

A hand-video-phone?  That's awesome!

Wiseman is also not much of an actor's director, which can be seen by the fact that his entire cast is one-dimensional.  I can't blame him for the script, but any character development --- at all --- would have been appreciated.  Story logic would have helped out a bit, too.  I couldn't have been the only person who realized that Kate Beckinsale's character is a covert agent out to capture one man, and yet she destroys more buildings and cannon fodder characters than the entire cast of Terminator 3.  That was not terribly covert.

...but she apparently enjoyed every minute of it

Total Recall (2012) is definitely a well-produced film, and it is undoubtedly full of action.  None of that means anything if the characters suck, though.  Well, I suppose that's not entirely true; if the action is ridiculous enough, it can balance out terrible characters, but that's not the case here.  Let's take one of the many chase scenes as a for instance:

Okay, this is a little reminiscent of Minority Report, but looks exciting enough.  When you look back on the film, though, this scene just blends in with dozens more that feel just like it.  However, ten seconds of Quaid at Rekall plant a lasting image in your mind.

Planting courtesy of Rekall

That is the most frustrating aspect of Total Recall (2012) --- it has some very cool sci-fi ideas and moments, but exclusively emphasizes the dumb action movie parts. As far as dumb action movies go, Total Recall is decently made.  It's nothing special, but it moves almost fast enough to keep the audience from noticing plot holes.  It's not very original, though, even for a remake.  Generic action sequences give way to homages to Minority Report, Blade Runner, and the 1990 original, but none of them are particularly clever or fun (except for tri-breast, which still makes me laugh every time). 

Cue fight scene 27

It was an incredibly poor choice to try an out-do the action in a remake of a film starring THE action star of the last 30 years, but the filmmakers didn't fail.  They were just adequate and bland.  And when you're being compared to something that was --- whatever your take on it --- unique, being boring looks even worse by comparison.  I thought about knocking this movie down a few notches for falling short of the original, but it's really a decent mindless action movie.  It should have been more, but it's perfectly mediocre for what it is.

Lord of Illusions

31 Days of Horror, post 12

I have had an odd interest in Lord of Illusions ever since it was released in theaters, back in 1995.  I haven't read the novella that the story is based on.  I am not a fan of Clive Barker's movies.  In fact, the only reason I am aware of this film at all is because it was heavily advertised in the comic books I read as a teen.  At the time, I had never seen a horror movie, but there was something about the title and advertisement that drew me in.  In a way, it was inevitable that I would track Lord of Illusions down and finally watch it.  However, my knowledge of movies in general (and horror movies in particular) immediately points out some potential weak points in this film.  For starters, the villain is the bad guy from Super Troopers and Scott Bakula is neither traveling through time or playing football with Kathy Ireland.  Hmm.  This one might get painful.

Lord of Illusions begins with a statement that there are two types of magic; one is illusions, the other is magic as reality, which can be powerful and make death an illusion.  Which would then be the other type of magic, I guess?  The story opens with a group of friends entering a secluded building in the middle of a desert.  They are there to put an end to Nix (Daniel von Bargen), a cult leader who professes to have magical powers.

Fire is nice, but real magic would give you a longer T-shirt

The interlopers were actually once followers of Nix, but realized that he is evil/batshit crazy, so they decide to kill him.  They don't do a good job, but a fluke of timing and circumstance leaves Nix with a bullet wound in his head and various other perforations.  But he's still not dead, because MAGIC!  The rebel leader, Swann (Kevin J. O'Connor), pulls out a sort of Vic Rattlehead S&M mask and screws it into Nix's face.  Team Killcult then decide to bury Nix so deep no one can ever find him.  Meanwhile, Nix's Number One toadie, Butterfield (played by J. Trevor Edmond and Barry Del Sherman), does his best his best Gamorrean impression.

And all of that was just the prologue!  Jump forward thirteen years and meet Detective Harry D'Amour (Scott Bakula), a hard-boiled private investigator with a nose for the supernatural.  While working another job, Harry stumbles across a dead body and winds up fighting the presumed killer.  It turns out that the corpse is one of the people who helped kill Nix.  When news of his fellow murderer-for-a-good-cause dying reaches Swann, his wife, Dorothea (Famke Janssen), decides to hire Harry to investigate the death because they think that Butterfield and other Nix-lovers are behind the murder.  And hiring a private investigator when you think you know the guilty party is better than telling the police because...?  Oh, and in the future, Swann is the most famous magician in the world.

Now you know where Criss Angel stole his act

Harry agrees to take their case and attends Swann's next magic spectacular with Dorothea.  During the show, something goes wrong and Swann dies.  What's with all the killing?  Well, it seems that Butterfield is trying to resurrect Nix, which naturally means that he is putting the only people who know enough to stop him on their guard.  So what can Harry do?  If you said, "Try to avert the resurrection of a evil warlock," then you might just be on to something.

The acting in Lord of Illusions tends to be a little campy, but isn't too bad.  Scott Bakula was miscast as the grim noir-ish hero; he works against his strengths here, trading his signature everyman charm for pseudo-tough talk.  Famke Janssen deadpans most of her lines and wears inappropriate clothing for most of the film.

...like her Scott Bakula stole

 Kevin J. O'Connor was just plain odd; he did a pretty good job acting like a master magician, but was melodramatic in the rest of the film.  Daniel von Bargen was similarly over the top, but he did look like the product of a man's passionate love for a salamander.

Fact: Evil is moist

In fact, the only actor in the entire movie that I actually enjoyed was Barry Del Sherman.  Of all the cast members, he seemed to flourish the most under this story's campy subtext.  To put that in context, he was the most entertaining actor, despite having a wardrobe that consisted primarily of a leather vest and snakeskin pants.  Oh, and a crushed velvet shirt for the truly special occasion of resurrecting a dead magician.

Because if you're going to dress up, you've gotta go all out

The reason I don't mind the acting in Lord of Illusions is because most of the actors fit the tone of the movie pretty well.  Written and directed by Clive Barker, there are moments in this story that would have fallen completely flat if they were handled with utmost seriousness, but Barker managed to get the actors play their parts (except for Bakula) with a tiny bit of goofiness.  The choice to camp this film up, just a little bit, is what saves it from being dreadful.  This is kind of a film-noir-meets-neon-camp style, if that's a thing.  As far as Barker's direction goes, the acting and sets were a little ridiculous, but I thought the violence and gore we handled pretty well.

The special effects were also pretty imaginative; the digital effects don't look great by today's standards, but they are still clever.  I really liked the weird origami/fire thing that confronts D'Amour after he romances Dorothea.  The practical effects stand the test of time far better.  Some of them were gory, some of them included full costumes, and some were fairly subtle by comparison (like Nix's fingers entering someone's skull), but they all looked pretty good.

Maybe a little silly, too, but that's the price you pay for wearing rubber suits

My biggest problem with Lord of Illusions was Clive Barker's writing.  The story is inherently melodramatic, so I'm glad that he added some camp into his script.  That doesn't forgive the poor focus or logic.  It is obvious that Scott Bakula's character, Harry D'Amour, is the main character in the film.  He gets top billing and is the point of view character for the audience to identify with as the story gets progressively weirder.  And yet, Barker spends a lot of time making Kevin J. O'Connor look like a mysterious bad-ass.  Heck, this story doesn't even adhere to the basic idea of having the main character play the hero; D'Amour is an observer when it comes down to Swann vs. Nix.  I also don't understand the magicians in this film.  Swann kills Nix and buries him, but is afraid that Nix may someday return from the grave.  Shouldn't the script at least mention why dismembering Nix's remains and/or cremating him is not an option?  And if you're going to hide a body in a desert, shouldn't it be harder to find?  It seemed as though that was the easy part for Butterfield to accomplish.  And what was up with Nix's followers?

"Join us and get a free Summer haircut"

I can understand a charismatic guy leading a cult and convincing them to do many things.  I find it hard to believe that the exact same people would all re-enlist in the cult after thriteen years of not having a charismatic leader to guide them.  Sure, some would return, but everyone seems pretty unlikely.  And I can't comment on this movie without pointing out Nix's stated goal that earned him a cult following: "I was born to murder the world.  You can help me if you like."  Okay, one: that's a pretty awesome villain line.  Two: wait, what?!?

Lord of Illusions doesn't quite work as a straight horror film or a campy one, but balances uncomfortably between the two genres.  The strangest thing about Lord of Illusions is that it is not difficult to sit through; the sum of it's odd parts is actually halfway decent.  I have an idea.  Instead of remaking classic horror movies, filmmakers should look at a movie like this, one that has good moments but got the big picture wrong, and update this.  I can imagine a version of Lord of Illusions that falls a lot closer to Angel Heart than Dracula A.D. 1972.  Then, maybe, we could enjoy a horror movie about magic that isn't mediocre at best.

 

Ju-On: The Grudge

31 Days of Horror: Day 5

I set a goal for myself this October: to watch and review a Japanese horror movie and its American remake.  I chose The Grudge and Ju-On: The Grudge, mostly because I didn't remember much about the story.  It turns out that re-watching The Grudge was a mistake.  It's pretty terrible.  However, there are some genuinely creepy images at the core of the film.  I was kind of depressed when I finished watching it because I knew that I had already decided to watch the same basic movie again, only with subtitles.  I started to perk up when I gave the matter a little more thought, though.  Of course the American remake sucks; it is a remake and American movies tend not to do supernatural horror as well as Asian cinema.  It would also follow that the American version was a lot tamer than the Japanese version, since Americans keep paying to see the same sequels over and over, while Japan is the home of tentacle porn, which is obviously far more disturbing, and I'm pretty sure it's the source of our conflict in WWII.  At the very least, I hope watching Ju-On: The Grudge will help me figure out why they wanted to make an American version at all.

Ju-On: The Grudge is assembled in a series of six vignettes, named after the main character of each chapter.  Rika (Megumi Okina) works as a visiting caretaker, giving families a helping hand by caring for the elderly relatives in their homes.  When Rika stops by her newest patient's home, she finds only the catatonic patient home --- the husband and wife who own the place are gone.  They left it a mess, too; it looks like grandma had a few friends over and they had a "throw wads of paper on the floor" party.  While cleaning up, Rika hears some scratching noises coming from an upstairs bedroom closet.  The closet in question is covered with tape, to keep it closed.  At this point, Rika seems willing to leave whatever is trapped in there --- a dying child, a sex slave, a magical elf king, or whatever ---alone.  In retrospect, that reluctance was a pretty good idea.  She only tears the tape off and opens the door when she hears a cat's meow.  She opens the door and finds a cat; she is also disappointed (I assume) when she sees a creepy child in the closet, as well.

More proof that you should never let kids out of closets

As Rika is trying to call social services (or, as they call it in Japan, "Super Ethical Family Dilemma Extreme GT") about creepy little Toshio (Yuya Ozeki), she sees a black cloud-thing hover over the old grandma lady; the cloud made a guttural, reverse-burping noise and then and then it had eyes and they were looking (LOOKING!) at Rika and...and...Rika faints.  ***deep breath***  The gist of the story is that anyone who goes into this cursed (grudged?) house is going to die by demon-cloud/Asian-lady-with-stringy-hair.  Their death may not come right away, but that's because this cursegrudge wants to spread, like a virus.  Some people die because they interact with people who have been to the house.  But wait...that must mean that Rika...might...die?

Is that a flashlight in a creepy attic?  Hell, she deserves what she gets.

The acting in Ju-On: The Grudge is fairly low-key.  The normal characters seem to act fairly realistically, which was nice, but their parts were not overly dramatic.  I liked Megumi Okina in the lead role, if only because she seemed suitably scared; she is that rare case of a horror movie character acting more frightened than a normal person would in the same circumstances.  Yuya Ozeki and Takako Fuji played the creepy ghost people (Cat Boy and Hair Girl, respectively), and they were fine.  There's not a whole lot of acting going on, but they can hold stares and poses pretty effectively.

In the director's cut, this shot lasts ten minutes

Misaki Itô was okay as Hitomi, the girl from the office building.  I don't like her character very much, but she seemed suitably frightened.  Misa Uehara gave what I felt was the best performance in the film, that of Izumi, the daughter of the lead detective.  She looked absolutely ragged and exhausted by fear in her vignette.  Hers was probably the least subtle performance in the movie, but it was nice to see something a little more emotional in this otherwise quietly acted movie.

Man, I wish she was calling for Gamera in this scene.  That would have been awesome.

Ju-On: The Grudge is the third film in the Ju-On series, and from what I can tell, they're all pretty much the same thing.  That may be because Takashi Shimizu wrote and directed them all.  Of course, he also directed the American remake (and its first sequel).  Like it's American sister, Ju-On: The Grudge suffers from pacing problems.  The editing is decent, which means that the scary scenes were handled well, but they were too spaced out for most of the film.  The budget for this movie was also pretty low, so the CGI of the GrudgeMonster as a black cloud looked kind of weird and the whole fingers-in-your-hair gag didn't look all that great.  Most of the acting in the film was unmemorable, but I was surprised to find that I liked two of the featured characters; after hating everyone in The Grudge, I consider that a significant improvement.  While I wasn't a big fan of the pacing in this movie, I have to admit that there were some striking images.  I would pee my pants (just a little bit) if I looked underneath my table at a restaurant and saw this:

"Is it time for me to murder you yet?  How about now?"

The more famous creepy moments (the ones you see in the trailer) are still noteworthy, but I liked the more subtle ones, like Cat Boy under the table.  Most of the script doesn't live up to those weird images, but the last two vignettes had a bizarre supernatural vibe to them that fit very well with the antagonists.

So what is it about the last two vignettes that made such a big difference?  They were what I like to call "extremely Japanese."  In other words, they were bizarre but interesting.

"Is it okay if I take your underwear to replenish the vending machine downstairs?"

The killers in Ju-On: The Grudge open the storytelling door to supernatural stuff, and it was cool to see the narrative take advantage of that fact.  This story was told out of chronological order, and it covered a large number of years, so it was interesting to see how much perspective the lens of time gives the main events in this story.  Specifically, it was interesting to see how the curse can be delayed and avoided, and the price of that act.  I also thought that the weird time-shifting worked pretty well here, because the two people involved were father and daughter; it doesn't make sense, but hey, it's close enough for a Japanese script. 

...as is this: Grrrudge Cats!

Just as important as the influx of weird supernatural stuff into the story was the way the curse was treated.  It would have been very easy to set this up as a mystery that the main character had to unravel.  And they did that, to a certain extent.  However, the cause of the curse was shown briefly during the opening credits.  Without that mystery hanging over the story, it allowed the characters a little more room to breathe and gave them some more interesting paths to take.  One of my favorite parts of this movie is the (completely ridiculous and, therefore, perfectly Japanese) realization that peeking through your fingers --- like the way some people watch horror movies --- lets people see the GrudgeMonsters.  The concept was introduced with someone at an old folk's home playing peekaboo with Cat Boy (FYI, Japanese for "peekaboo" appears to be "Ny ny ny ny...Blah!"), and it led to a couple of very cool visual moments toward the end of the movie.

"Trust me, this is the only way you want to see The Grudge"

So, I guess the only mildly important question that remains is how Ju-On: The Grudge compares to The Grudge.  Both movies share the same basic story, the same basic run-time, the same actors playing the ghostly killers, and the same director, so it's not surprising that they are very similar.  And, for the first two-thirds of the film, "very similar" means "for all intents and purposes, identical." 

In the American version, she stands on the other side of the elevator

And, if you read my review of The Grudge, you can imagine how pissed off that made me.  But then the last two vignettes pop up and added some much-needed variety.  Those two bits were not included (for the most part) in the American version, even though they were definitely the most interesting bits.  They were weird, atmospheric, and fairly unique.  Does that make up for a movie that is 67% crap?  No, they would have needed to be something closer to Ballstastically Awesome to make up for the rest of this story, but they did drag the film up from "absolutely wretched" to "Oh, I get why they remade this."  In the end, I suppose that's all I was hoping to get.