I went to a preview screening for this movie.

For the positives:
- there are some really good scores in this movie
- the title card flashes up in japanese which is a nice tribute
- the practical effects look amazing
- the casting is really good - at times the mother looks like she's on the verge of a mental breakdown
- some of the dialogue is really touching and heartbreaking
- strongly developed small-town cop feels
- some of the characters have really good backstories
- grief is a strong theme in this movie

But the negative...oh goodness. The idea of the curse...basically a police officer takes the curse back with her from Japan and it infects her house. Despite this being a movie with several main character police officers, there is no investigation. They do not actually investigate the curse at all, because a previous character did all of it before. You dont get to see any of the discovery, you dont even get to see anything in Japan.

This movie is not scary. You don't see any chasing or stalking, you don't see any deaths until the end of the movie. It is all jump scare/fade to black. The CGI does not look good. The cadavers spewing flies look very fake. The blood splatter scene where the mother stabs herself in the neck looks very fake. The blood particularly looks almost pixelated on the stained glass window. I just can't understand that there are no real chase /stalking or fighting the bad monster scenes. It feels like a tribute to The Grudge in that they couldn't show the monster because they couldn't afford it in the budget. The Grudge aspect in this film is more like vengeful spirit possession, less tied to the idea of a monster personifying a grudge brought on my death.

The tonal shifts are really confusing as is the direction the movie goes in. It feels like the director wanted to make a well-shot western film or something like There Will Be Blood, but only got a horror movie instead. Some character and story elements are really underused. The main character has a son but he's in like 10% of the movie. They have a dog but it isn't even in more than 3 scenes?

Overall I'm just really disappointed since I thought it started pretty strong.