The Grudge Reboot Red Band Trailer Released

If there was any doubt that Sam Raimi’s upcoming reboot of The Grudge was going to really earn its R rating, it’s time to throw those concerns out of the window. On Tuesday morning, Sony Pictures released the Red Band trailer for The Grudge and it is as gory, violent, and grotesque as one would expect. There is an aubdance of horrifying imagery in this sub-three minute promo, much like other horror films that have Raimi playing some sort of creative role. In other words, it’s exactly what fans have been hoping for since The Grudge was officially rated R.

Similar to one of the early IT CHAPTER TWO trailers, this trailer for The Grudge features a pretty lengthy scene of a visit to a scary old woman’s house, only for things to take a terrifying turn by the end. You can watch the full trailer in the video above, but be warned, it isn’t for everyone.

Back in October, The Grudge reboot, directed by Nicolas Pesce, was handed its R rating for “disturbing violence and bloody images, terror and some language.” This marks a major departure from the previous English adaptations of The Grudge story, as they were rated PG-13.

Another change facing the new iteration of The Grudge is the moving of the story from Japan to the United States, a decision that is baked into the lore of the franchise according to its director.

“The beauty of The Grudge franchise, both the American and Japanese iterations, is it’s an anthology series. Every movie is a different story of different characters having different interactions with this curse,” Pesce said in an interview earlier this year. “In today’s age where we’re remaking everything, I thought it would be fun to dive into The Grudge universe where we don’t have to remake anything, but rather a new chapter in this canon.”

“I think the most compelling thing about the grudge is that it’s inescapable. All you need to do is walk into a house that feels unassuming, and you’re screwed,” he added. “It’s not your traditional haunted house movie where you pull up to a creepy, Gothic-looking house and go, ‘oh god that’s haunted.’ A motif of all the films, especially this one, is that behind the most normal kind of house, inside the most normal-seeming life, there can be something horrifying — whether it’s real and grounded, or something otherworldly and terrifying, it can happen anywhere, behind any door, to anyone. It’s unique to this story and philosophically terrifying.”

Are you looking forward to The Grudge reboot? What do you think of the new trailer? Let us know in the comments!

The Grudge hits theaters on January 3, 2020.