Sarah Michelle Gellar is no Naomi Watts. But even more importantly, "The Grudge" is not "The Ring."

		'The Grudge' Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material, disturbing images/terror/violence, and some sensuality. Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar Director: Takashi Shimizu

Both are remakes of Japanese horror hits, but "The Grudge" is a dressed-up haunted house, evil-has-taken-up-residence tale, although one that can raise a few goose bumps now and then. Instead of the usual creaky floors and transparent ghosts, we get wet footprints, scratching sounds, hunks of black hair and spirits emerging from an inky cloud.

"The Grudge" is set in Tokyo, where Karen (Gellar) is living with her boyfriend (Jason Behr) and studying social work. She's assigned to watch an elderly, ailing American (Grace Zabriskie), whose regular nurse has disappeared. When Karen investigates weird noises and cries in a taped-up closet, she finds a little boy, a cat, a notebook -- and a whole lotta evil.

Karen is sucked into the vortex of fury and tragedy that haunts the house. It's an abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter place, with most of the dots connected by the end but not in the tightly drawn way we might like.

"The Grudge," directed by Takashi Shimizu, who made the Japanese original, is best in quietly disturbing moments, as when a man wordlessly folds his body over a balcony railing and falls to his death. The movie drops in flashbacks without the usual cinematic connective tissue, and it creates a mood more disturbing and puzzling than flat-out frightening, sleep-with-the-lights on.