Breaking Point & The Grudge

Breaking Point was Bo Arne Vibenius's follow up to Thriller (or They Call Her One Eye or a few different other things). More pornographic and with a worse narrative, it is amazingly more misogynistic. There's a reason why he pretty much never worked again. Terrible movie. And why did he need to have characters to say that 89% of women want to be raped? Just seems really wrong. Did someone just sample women who are in abusive relationships or something? Who did that survey? Seems like he pulled that number out of his ass as a way to make it less offensive that the main character rapes and kills his way through the movie. And why did he need to shoot at the cops? And why did the victim who fought back put her clothes back on before running away after stabbing him? Really, if you're being raped and you start fighting back, wouldn't you stab him more than once and wouldn't you then try to get away as soon as possible? Plus, I kept getting the feeling that the movie was just a figment of the guy's imagination. Or maybe it was because the movie was so disjointed, the dream sequence at the end, the male fantasy aspect of the entire movie, the various justifications for his actions, and of course, the fact that it was a Swedish film and it was dubbed in English. Poorly. However, it is actually a fairly well made movie, which makes it all the more disturbing. However, while I can argue that Thriller is an interesting film and should be seen, it's much harder to argue to see this movie, as the hardcore pornography is not limited to some insert shots, and is just less interesting. At least it's short.

The Grudge is strangely better than the original Japanese film. I didn't think that would happen. But the Hollywoodization makes it make a little more sense. Less really confusing plot points. I'm a little surprised by that. Although really, when the first movie made no sense at all and worked, to the extent it did, only due to visuals and the tone, just grafting a plot onto the mess would make it better. And they grafted a plot, kept the creepy visuals (even if they're mainly a rip-off of Ringu (just like the original Ju-On)), and made it a slightly better movie. Knowing exactly what was going to happen didn't change much. At some point I may have to watch the second one, although that will again probably be when it comes out on something where all I have to spend is my time.