Here's a novel way of jumping on the Japanese horror movie remake bandwagon: Make it in Japan.

For my money, the Tokyo-set "The Grudge," based on the "Ju-on: The Grudge" series of video and feature film ghost stories, is a lot scarier than the North America-set "Ring" knockoff of a few years ago.

For one thing, retaining "Ju-on's" original director, Takashi Shimizu, and some of the key actors, such as Takako Fuji and Yuya Ozeki as a mother-son terror tag team, guarantees an understanding of what makes the franchise work that won't get lost in translation.

Also, by focusing mainly on American characters who are already discombobulated in an unfamiliar culture, "The Grudge" earns an extra degree of psychological realism that is sorely missing from most of the world's fright films, regardless of their country of origin.

Indeed, the first theatrical "Ju-on," which had a brief release in L.A. last summer, played less effectively than this mostly English version. Narratively fragmented by nature, it felt both repetitious and confusing.

With "Spider-Man" man (and, more relevant here, "Evil Dead" creator) Sam Raimi producing and our own vampire-slaying Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar, leading the cast, the new "Grudge" is easier to follow and just different enough to seem fresh. Many of the key elements fron "Ju-on" have been transferred intact. Most have been staged a little better, but at least one sequence, featuring actress Kadee Strickland and a bed, is not quite as unsettling as its Asian model. But a lot of the really head-scratching, time-bending stuff has been excised, all to the improvement of the story's flow.

Gellar's Karen and her boyfriend Doug ("Roswell's" Jason Behr) are exchange students in Tokyo. She does part-time social work, which leads her to call on a senile American woman (Grace Zabriskie) in her trashed-out home. Once there, Karen discovers a little boy, Ozeki's Toshio, who's been locked up in a closet. That's enough to make any kid weird, but not as weird as Toshio turns out to be.

Seems something horrible happened in that place. And the title grudge refers to tortured spirits who want to share their agony from beyond the grave. So, basically, anyone who enters the house that isn't done in then and there gets chased back to their home, workplace or hospital room by shadowy apparitions. Lots of unnerving, clicking croaking comes over phone lines, too. And even the worst hair day of your life will never compare to what you'll see in this thing.

For some, "The Grudge" will seem just as illogical and redundant as most horror films. But if you're at all familiar with the earlier versions, you'll see an intriguing refinement, on Shimizu's part, of scare tactics he's worked with before -- and is doing better than ever.

TITLE: "The Grudge"DIRECTOR: Takashi ShimizuCAST: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Kadee Strickland, Ryo Ishibashi, Takako Fuji, Yuya Ozeki, Bill PullmanRATED: PG-13 (violence, sex, nudity, children in jeopardy)GRADE: * * * (on a scale of 5)