In theaters

THE GRUDGE, directed by Takashi Shimizu, written by Shimizu and Stephen Susco, 96 minutes, rated PG-13.

The pointless new horror movie, “The Grudge,” begins with some heady news: “When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage, a curse is left behind. Those who encounter it die, and a new curse is born.”

Let’s hope they’re wrong. Otherwise, should someone kick the can after seeing this beauty, curses will descend upon cineplexes everywhere.

This empty, confusing movie – a stunt that capitalizes on the success of 2002’s “The Ring” – is a remake of the low-budget, 2003 Japanese horror film, “Ju-On: The Grudge,” itself a remake, of sorts, of 2000’s “Ju-On: The Curse” and “Ju-On: The Curse 2.”

All were such hits in Japan, producer and fan Sam Raimi (“The Evil Dead,” “Spider-Man,” “Spider-Man 2”) commissioned the series’ director, Takashi Shimizu, who also directed 2003’s “Ju-On: The Grudge 2,” to helm an American version of “The Grudge.”

Too bad so much is lost in translation. As written by Shimizu and Stephen Susco, “The Grudge” fragments time so completely, it generates a train wreck of confusion onscreen.

Shot in the washed-out blues of a corpse, the movie is atmospheric and features a few admirable, individual scenes of horror, but none of that compensates for a hackneyed plot that never gels or for a story that ends so abruptly, it left some audience members at my screening booing at the screen.

The movie stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as Karen, an American nurse living in Tokyo with her boyfriend, Doug (Jason Behr), who is studying architecture.

When Karen volunteers to tend to a mentally unstable American woman at a nearby house, she finds it haunted by a little boy who shrieks like a cat and his mother, who makes such a corrosive, gargling noise whenever she appears, some might feel compelled to throw little purple pills at the screen to help heal the damage. Both died brutally in ways that won’t be revealed here.

Naturally, since Karen has entered the house, she is in danger of also dying due to the curse that now infects her. Bill Pullman and Clea DuVall appear in sketchy flashbacks, but how Shimizu introduces them to the story is muddled, killing the fun.

In the end, “The Grudge” is soulless, half-baked sludge that should have gone straight to video.

Grade: D-

On video and DVD

NOSFERATU, directed by F.W. Murnau, written by Henrik Galeen, based on the novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, 81 minutes, not rated.

Of all the horror movies that will be rented this week – from such reliable classics as the original “Dracula,” “Psycho” and “The Exorcist” to such camp classics as “Amazon Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death,” “Berserk” and “Motel Hell” – one film provides the undercurrent that runs through all of them: F.W. Murnau’s silent film, “Nosferatu.”

For those who haven’t seen it and are interested, it’s a great primer to the history of the horror film, which sounds ridiculously boring and academic, so it’s good news that the movie is neither. Loosely adapted by Henrik Galeen from Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula,” “Nosferatu” found Murnau pioneering a new canvas, laying the blueprint for all that was to come with a strident imagination steeped in German Expressionism. He made the film in 1922, when horror movies were still relatively new and audiences weren’t trained in the tricks of the genre.

The film begins with a title card that sets the tone for what’s to come: “Does not this word [Nosferatu] sound like the call of the death bird at midnight? You dare not say it since the pictures of life will fade into dark shadows, ghostly dreams will rise from your heart and feed on your blood.” Creepy.

Centered around the Great Death in Germany in 1838, “Nosferatu” begins in Bremen with a crazed real estate agent named Knock (Alexander Granach) sending his enthusiastic clerk, Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim), to the Carpathian Mountains to meet Count Orlok (Max Schreck), a freakish, emaciated beast with rodent eyes, sharp teeth, and a taste for blood who is looking to buy a house in Hutter’s hometown.

Before leaving his worried wife, Ellen (Greta Schoeder), for the mountains, Hutter is naive and fearless, laughing in the face of the mounting warning signs that suggest all isn’t right with the menacing Orlok.

Still, when Hutter actually lays eyes on the count – and as he is insidiously drawn into the man’s underworld – the tone changes along with the music,which becomes urgent as it occurs to Hutter that Orlok is in fact the vampire, Nosferatu.

While it’s true that some younger, contemporary audiences raised on such movies as “Bride of Chucky” and junk like “The Grudge” might long for the manufactured jolts “Nosferatu” doesn’t provide, some scenes are classic and do verge on the unnerving.

Seeing Nosferatu, for instance, rising stiff from his casket is chilling and unforgettable. Watching him feast on Ellen’s “lovely neck,” as he calls it, is unshakable. These and other images are the seeds of horror, directly influencing a genre that has benefited enormously by them.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.