Most trailers tend to arrive in a flurry of images and sound designed to grab your attention, so I've got to hand it to the recently released red-band trailer for THE GRUDGE for electing to establish its tone with largely just one scene. I like it. The upcoming film, which director Nicolas Pesce has said is not a reboot, brings the action to America and stars Andrea Riseborough (MANDY) as a cop who comes across a seemingly-unexplainable case that leads her to a house which has been grudged. In addition to Riseborough, THE GRUDGE also stars Demian Bichir, Lin Shaye, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, and Jacki Weaver.
Nicolas Pesce has previously teased that this new film is "way more f**ked up" than anything before seen in the series. He also said that they wanted to balance the old visuals which the franchise is known for with something new.
“As far as the imagery, it was finding that balance between [old visuals and new visuals]. “We’re finding the key elements that are just how the grudge expresses itself. So much of this movie is about the fact that this can happen anywhere and that it happens everywhere. It can spread like wildfire. Having certain touchstones was important. Obviously with a franchise we don’t want to throw everything out. There is certain stuff that is fun for the fans to see again in a new context with a new spin…There are homages and odes to J-horror stylistically, but it is a whole new story and characters,” Pesce added. “We try to find new ways of doing similiar things they have done.”
THE GRUDGE is slated to hit theaters on January 3, 2020.