It’s weird how a film that synthesizes the story of 1979’s “The Amityville Horror” and cinematography of 2002’s “The Ring” can some how fail in both plot and style.

In the peaceful Japanese suburban community where the newest Japanese horror movie “The Grudge” takes place, a house harbors the ghosts of a vicious murder-suicide. Three years after the tragedy, an American family moves in and finds themselves subjected to the terror of the vicious grudge-curse left behind.

Anyone who becomes involved in the house, or involved with those associated with the house, cannot escape the terror and will ultimately fall victim to a gruesome death. Conveniently for the viewers of this film, the most recent individual to become involved in the house just happens to be Karen Davis played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Karen is substituting as a caretaker for the ill mother in the family and becomes intertwined with the house.

Gellar isn’t a great actress, but, as a veteran of a handful of low-ball teenage thrillers, she has the routine down, which makes for a satisfactory performance in the role of “damsel in distress.”

So, the performances are bland — fine. This can be overlooked. But as for the rest of the movie — well, it is relatively bland as well.

There are just too many red herrings throughout the film that leave the viewer disconnected and confused.

The many extraneous characters and scenes distract the viewer from the essence of the film. The boyfriend, Doug, played by Jason Behr, for example, is far too absent in the beginning of the story to be as imperative to the climax as he is. Had Shimizu spent more time developing the relationship between Doug and Karen, his importance to the climax would have been more convincing.

The role of one sister to a victim, Susan, played by KaDee Strickland, adds nothing to the movie besides demonstrating the fact that even familial association will render you subject to the grudge. Shimizu should have found a quicker, more efficient way of establishing this, instead of wasting 15 minutes of the movie showing a minor character being chased by a ghost.

The ending is cheap and unsatisfactory. One might argue that this ending is one of those ambiguous endings that leaves the viewer thinking for days afterward. If this is what the film was aiming for, it fell drastically short.

The ending is not ambiguous and thought provoking; it is merely jolting and ill-timed. Stylistically, “The Grudge” is nothing new. Muted, cold lighting, eerie jointed movements and expressionistic sound effects are all elements seen by the more effective Gore Verbinski piece “The Ring.”

Interesting themes in the movie, such as solitude and alienation, could have been explored with greater depth, but remained diluted amid aimless scenes and characters. The director should have cut away some of the fat and developed more of those underlying themes; this would have created a more effective piece.

The film had definite potential, but Shimizu missed a great opportunity to create an atypical thriller with too many characters, too many repetitive images and not enough substance to make the viewer think.