The Grudge 2 (PG-13)
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This came out in 2006, but I didn't see it until 2024. It's a sequel to The Grudge. It had all the same sorts of jump scares and creepy imagery that I enjoyed in the first movie, but this time they just felt kind of played out. And the story (or stories) didn't really interest me that much.

So, there are like three separate stories going on, and the movie jumps back and forth between them. In one of them, Karen from the first movie is in a hospital in Tokyo, and accused of arson. Her sister, Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn), is sent by their mother to bring Karen home to the U.S., but the ghost of Kayako ends up killing Karen. Aubrey is approached by a journalist named Eason, who is investigating all the deaths connected to the Saeki house. The two of them continue to investigate, and are haunted by Kayako and Toshio, themselves.

In another story, set in 2006 (though I didn't realize that while watching the movie), there are three teenage schoolgirls in Tokyo, Allison, Vanessa, and Miyuki, who break into the Saeki house, and after that they're haunted by Kayako and Toshio, too.

The third story is set in Chicago. Or perhaps I should say the first story, because the movie started with something that happened in this story, before flashing back to some time prior to that scene. A man named Bill remarries sometime after his first wife died. His teenage daughter, Lacey, welcomes her new stepmother, Trish (Jennifer Beals), but his younger son, Jake, isn't happy about Trish coming into their lives. Jake starts hearing weird sounds coming from a neighboring apartment, and eventually finds... someone from one of the other stories is living there, now. I don't want to spoil who, but Kayako has followed them there.

And I guess that's all I want to say. I've avoided spoiling any deaths other than Karen's, but there are plenty of others. I dunno... maybe I would have liked this movie more if it weren't a sequel. I might well enjoy the first movie less if I ever watched it again. But whatever, this was just a case of "been there, done that".

Followed by the direct-to-DVD movie "The Grudge 3", which I don't know if I'll ever bother watching.