Not so much a remake of the 2003 Japanese horror-thriller Ju-On: The Grudge as a recasting with the same location, same director and some of the original cast.

The main difference is the lead roles are now taken by Americans, the most familiar being vampire slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar and veteran actor Bill Pullman.

In the new Sam Raimi-produced effort, Gellar plays Karen, an exchange student studying social work in Tokyo who agrees to cover for an absentee nurse.

When you know the nurse's name is Yoko then you might get an inkling that there's going to be disharmony sown in the ranks.

Sure enough, we learn that when Yoko popped her head into the attic of the house where she was tending a catatonic old lady, she disappeared in a writhing mass of flailing limbs.

Hours later Karen's knocking on the door of the creepy old house and, after finding the old dear ga-ga and a mysterious boy hidden in a cupboard, a very nasty thing indeed comes a-calling.

Now, you would have though SMG would have slipped into Daphne-guise and called in the help of Scooby, Shaggy and co in the Mystery Machine.

But, alas, no. She's got to rely on the help of rugged boyfriend Doug (Behr) and a sympathetic Japanese detective, who knows more than he's letting on.

This is a nicely structured and archly manipulative chiller - when you hear a creaking sound look away - even if it doesn't make the transition to the mainstream as smoothly as The Ring.

It's good to know estate agents are as shifty the world over: here one who knows the gory history of the house keeps mum when an unsuspecting Yank pops his head round the door and yells "we'll take it!"

Gellar acquits herself adequately, director Takashi Shimizu can build up the tension with the best of them and the plot is eerily ingenious even though it borrows heavily from similar Asian horror fare.

Don't be-grudge yourself the price of admission - see it...but don't go home alone.

Tim Evans