A sort of reboot/sequel, The Grudge is directed and written by Nicolas Pesce, who has created a buzz on the horror scene with his first two features, The Eyes of My Mother (2016) and Piercing (2018). Pesce’s take on The Grudge is the first of the movies to be set in America — upstate New York, to be exact, and while it takes place in 2004 (the same year as the first American film), it goes back and forth in time as it focuses on three family units that all come into contact with the title terror. One of those families consists of real estate agents Nina and Peter Spencer, played by Betty Gilpin and John Cho, who are infected with the curse after they prepare a house for sale but are unaware that a tragedy in the house left supernatural repercussions. Cho is best known to our readers as Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulu in the last three Star Trek movies, but also made history as the first Asian-American actor to lead a mainstream Hollywood thriller when he starred in 2018’s Searching. His other credits in film and TV include the Harold and Kumar films, FlashForward, Sleepy Hollow, Columbus, The Exorcist, The Oath and others, and he has become a leading voice for better Asian representation across both mediums. He’s set to star as Spike Spiegel in Netflix’s long-awaited live-action adaptation of the celebrated Cowboy Bebop anime series, although a knee injury on set recently shut down production until later this spring. Den of Geek: Are you personally attracted to horror films as a fan? John Cho: I’m a recent convert. The first movie I ever saw in a theater was a horror movie called Death Ship Part 2, and I saw it when I was six years old by accident. We had just moved to America, and my parents took us to a second run movie theater where the seats were $1.00, to get some cheap air conditioning. In Korea at the time, all movies were okay for general audience, so (my parents) didn’t really realize that this was a rated R thing or what that meant. So we went in and I saw a woman being impaled within the first two minutes and was really freaked out. But we did not leave the theater because we had paid four bucks, so my parents kept us in there. My brother was four. We just watched this movie with hands over our eyes at the bad parts. read more: 31 Best Horror Movies to Stream So I was recently thinking that’s probably why I was never really into horror. I didn’t want to watch Halloween or Friday the 13th as a teenager when everybody else was into that stuff, and I just sort of stayed away from it. A late bloomer. The Grudge series has this kind of convoluted history. Did you explore any of the other movies, either from Japan or the U.S.? You know, there’s so much that you could get bogged down in, and I hadn’t watched any of it. I said yes to the film based upon Nick’s work, both his previous work as a director and then based on the script and our meeting and our discussing the film. And when I said yes, I said, “What do you want me to expose myself to in the Grudge universe?” And he said this film connects very directly to Ju-On, and that’s the one I want you to see, and just keep it there. So I haven’t seen the other ones, but I guess it’s a good time to go back now. The central of this series is that rage becomes something that lingers on even after death. Do you see that as an interesting metaphor for the idea of rage or repressed anger in general? Oh boy, I hadn’t really even thought about it that way. Even though the premise sounds supernatural and it sounds far-fetched, I think the reason it works is we all actually believe it. Like I have avoided buying homes where I’ve learned of an unfortunate death, because on some level I believe that there is something left over in that house. That the house has a memory of it, you know? I think it’s the reason the genre works — when it really works, it works spectacularly, because it’s speaking to something within us that’s true. What did you hone in on about this character? You shot this before you started working on Cowboy Bebop and got injured. So if I may ask, how’s the knee feeling? I’m coming along. We’re in the middle of rehab and I’m not sure what the timetable is. I’m trying not to think about it too much. That’ll be fluid as I get better and better, but things are coming along really nicely and I’m really excited about the show. I’ve seen some of it and it’s just a really unique kind of vocabulary. The most unique kind of filmmaking experience probably that I’ve had that I can remember. The visual elements, the music elements, character stuff. It’s just very unusual. I love it. What are you hearing on the Star Trek front? What’s your sense of where things might be going with that? (The film series has reportedly been handed off to Legion creator Noah Hawley.) I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything directly from Paramount or anyone associated with it. I’m not even in a position to confirm any of those things that you’ve heard, so unfortunately I got nothing for you. But every time I hear about a potential Star Trek film, I get really excited. The ideas all seem really good. I wish we’d go ahead and make one. I’m ready. I imagine you’d like to get to explore Sulu some more now that they were starting to move the character forward a bit. You’ve done and spoken a lot about representation for Asian actors and Asian-American actors in the system these days, so are you sort of intrigued to see what Marvel is doing with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings, which is the first Asian-led superhero film that’s going to be coming out in a year or so? Sure yeah, that sounds exciting. I’m a little resistant to sort of hanging everyone’s future on superhero movies, just as a concept, and I don’t know anything about it, but I’ll certainly be watching. The idea of an Asian superhero is certainly exciting. The Grudge is out in theaters Friday (January 3). Read and download the Den of Geek Lost In Space Special Edition Magazine right here! Don Kaye is a Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist and associate editor of Den of Geek. Other current and past outlets include Syfy, United Stations Radio Networks, Fandango, MSN, RollingStone.com and many more. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @donkaye
