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Karen (Gellar) is a trainee social worker living in Japan with her husband Doug (Behr), and on her first solo visit she encounters a crazy woman (Zabriskie) and a mysterious young boy (Ozeki). Then everything begins to go nuts. In flashbacks we see the woman's family--daughter, son and daughter-in-law (Strickland, Mapother and DuVall)--who each have an encounter with the boy and/or his ghostly mother (Fuji), as does another American (Pullman). Someone's anger is haunting this house!

Director Shimizu, as he did with Ju-on, simply inserts something scary into every scene. Things pop out of nowhere, fade into view, make a freaky noise, and so on, keeping us thoroughly off balance. Like the characters, we're never quite sure what's going on, simply because the film refuses to play by the rules of the genre. No two people have the same experience after they're "infected" by the grudge, so we never have a clue what will happen next.

Amid this intense atmosphere the cast give us characters we can believe in. Gellar doesn't have much to do beyond widening her eyes in a terrified manner, but she certainly draws us right with her into the perplexing chaos. And the fact that she and the others are foreigners adds to the film's disconcerting tone. Although you can be sure there's no Lost in Translation culture-clash subtlety going on here!

In some ways it seems pointless to remake a film so precisely. Yes, it will bring Shimizu's Grudge mythology to Western audiences in a much bigger way than his two videos and two feature films have. (Ju-on 2 is supposedly the best of the four.) And by using the same sets and actors, this film feels like a fifth instalment in the saga. It'll be interesting to see where he goes next.