Sadako vs Kayako (2016)

It’s been a while, and horror hasn’t found a new bag of tricks since the heady days of the “curse video” that was spawned by what must be deemed a true modern horror classic: Hideo Nakata’s Ringu. The film featured one of the most heart-stopping moments in horror movie history and an idea that was novel, intriguing and devilishly wicked fun.

The 90’s closed with Nakata’s film breathing new life into a tired, exhausted and stale genre, simply recycling and regurgitating formulas over and over again. Along comes Ring and horror discovering a new dimension of fear and imagery rejuvenating a tired genre and presenting the world of horror with a new monster; a new atrocity in the form of the memorable, broken figure that emerged from the well: Sadako. Ringu’s influence was almost immediate. The first wave of variants arrived in The Grudge, a film that was creepy, effective, and contained some memorable imagery and sounds.

Sadako vs Kayako opens in present-day Japan at a university where a lecturer discusses “urban legends” including the cursed video. He jokingly mocks the idea, inviting his students to discover the notorious curse video for which he would be delighted to pay a reasonable price. Two of his students, who spend most of his lecture half-asleep, decide to take a trip to an old junk shop where they find an old VCR, and when one of the girls handles it, her hand comes away with strands of black hair which is not a good omen. However, she disregards this, and they head off home. When they plug the machine in, they are surprised to find that there is already a video in the device, which sets their imaginations and their pulse racing just a little bit.

Meanwhile, in the very opening scene, a social worker visits an older woman in her flat. She knocks and knocks, but there is no response. As she investigates, she discovers the old lady’s body, with a wire coiled around her neck, very dead. Her shock is compounded when a video suddenly flickers onto the screen, and she watches it unknowingly. After it’s over, the inevitable phone rings and she is marked by the curse and death is a certainty; unless she follows the rules, she is blissfully unaware.

The owners of the pawnshop where the old VCR was sold are disturbed to find that one of their employees had seen a videotape and watched it because there have been some inexplicable and appalling deaths, and no one knows precisely why. Moments later, the employee throws herself off the top of the shop and crashes onto the cold stone floor, dead.

Could it be that the curse is back? It certainly seems that way. Meanwhile, the two young university students gingerly start to watch the video in their flat, but while it plays, one of the girls, Yuri, receives a phone call that diverts her attention. Her friend watches the video in its entirety, and accurate to the curse, the phone rings and a shrill ringing sound is heard, chilling to the bone. Natsumi is convinced of the tape’s authenticity and realizes that she too will be damned to die in 48 hours unless she can find a solution. The race is on to find a way to stop the curse from completing its cycle of death, and they turn to their professor and university for help.

At the same time, in another part of town, a small family, including teenaged daughter Suzuka, moves to a new home. Little do they know that the neighbour’s house is infested with the spirit of Kayako and Toshio from the Grudge (Ju-on) films. Kayako, the ghastly figure who crawls along the floor in a typically broken staccato style as she strikes out at her victims, emitting that awful croaking sound. Toshio is the little white-faced ghostly kid who pops up everywhere, causing death and mayhem, elongating necks and snapping necks along the way.

Her professor takes Yuri to try to break the curse to an Exorcist, but her powers are no match for the malevolence, and the session ends up with corpses littering the venue, necks snapped. As she fades away, the exorcist tells Yuri to seek the help of a duo composed of a young blind girl with ESP and her partner, a young man with powers not unlike those possessed by Rajnikant in many of his movies. With the swish of a hand, he can impart almost magical abilities that come in very handy in fighting the dreadful predicament facing them.

Finally, as the threat mounts and Suzuka’s parents meet a horrendous fate, the only way out appears to set somehow the stage by which the dreaded evil can pitted against one another in the hope that they will destroy each other evil in a battle of supremacy.

Natsumi meanwhile attempts to take her own life but is beaten to it by a visit by the ghastly apparition of Sadako, and another hideous hairy situation follows. Yuri has to draw the two evil powers out and make them confront each other and hope that the evil is defeated as the two forces collide in an ultimate clash of horrors. Hastily the video player is set up in Kayako’s home.

Will they succeed in their endeavour, or will they fail to vanquish the forces of malevolent evil? Will Sadako prevail, or will Kayako and Toshio prove sterner adversaries? All is revealed in a stunning showdown between the two. If the plan works, Yuri will be drawn into the well and trapped there forever.

The end is a very hairy situation in more ways than one, and the consequences of the experiment to crush the horror doesn’t go quite according to plan.

The film revives the two enormously successful franchises in Freddy Vs Jason style and puts on quite a spectacle, but does it have the fear factor of the initial Ringu or Ju-on series? Maybe not, but it is an entertaining ride all the same and has enough humour to keep things from getting too dark. Items are handled with more than a pinch of salt. Some of the dialogue is delivered with poker-faced seriousness but undercut with apparent doses of humour which lightens the mood and keeps the film from getting overly serious.

Horror hasn’t really found a new direction of late, and the torture porn thing is both excessive, repetitive and more than a little brain-numbing on occasion, so Sadako vs Kayako comes as a delightfully whimsical little experience, not perhaps anywhere near as terrifying as its predecessors but certainly almost as enjoyable. With Rings right around the corner, the world should be ready to welcome back Sadako from her enforced sabbatical. Good fun, if unlikely to give anybody nightmares like the initial Ringu was more than capable of – money and time well spent.

It’s been a while, and horror hasn’t found a new bag of tricks since the heady days of the “curse video” that was spawned by what must be deemed a true modern horror classic: Hideo Nakata’s Ringu. A film that featured one of the most heart-stopping moments in horror movie history and introduced an idea that was novel, intriguing and devilishly wicked fun.

The 90’s closed with Nakata’s film breathing new life into a tired, exhausted and stale genre, simply recycling and regurgitating formulas over and over again. Along comes, Ring and horror discovers a new dimension of fear and imagery, rejuvenating a tired genre and presenting the world of horror with a new monster, a new atrocity in the form of the memorable, broken figure that emerged from the well: Sadako. Ringu’s influence was almost immediate. The first wave of variants arrived in The Grudge; a film that was creepy, effective, and contained some memorable imagery and sounds.

Sadako vs Kayako opens in present day Japan at a university where a lecturer is discussing “urban legends” including the cursed video. He jokingly mocks the idea inviting his students to discover the notorious curse video, which he would be delighted to pay a reasonable price for. Two of his students, who spend most of his lecture half asleep, decide to take a trip to an old junk shop where they find an old VCR, and when one of the girls handles it, her hand comes away with strands of black hair, which is not a good omen. However, she disregards this, and they head off home. When they plug the machine in, they are surprised to find that there is already a video in the device, which sets their imaginations and their pulse racing just a little bit.

Meanwhile, in the very opening scene, a social worker visits an older woman in her flat. She knocks and knocks but there is no response. As she investigates, she discovers the body of the old lady with a wire coiled around her neck, dead. Her shock is compounded when a video suddenly flickers onto the screen, and she watches it unknowingly. After it’s over, the inevitable phone rings and she is marked by the curse and death is a certainty unless she follows the rules she is blissfully unaware of.

The owners of the pawnshop where the old VCR was sold are disturbed to find that one of their employees had found a videotape and watched it because there have been some inexplicable and appalling deaths, and no one knows precisely why. Moments later, the employee throws herself off the top of the shop and crashes onto the cold stone floor, dead.

Could it be that the curse is back? It certainly seems that way. Meanwhile, the two young university students gingerly start to watch the video in their flat, but while it plays, one of the girls, Yuri, receives a phone call that diverts her attention. Her friend watches the video in its entirety, and as per the curse, the phone rings and a shrill ringing sound is heard, chilling to the bone. Natsumi is convinced of the tape’s authenticity and realizes that she too will be damned to die in 48 hours unless she can find a solution. The race is on to find a way to stop the curse from completing its cycle of death, and they turn to their professor and university for help.

At the same time, in another part of town, a small family, including teenaged daughter Suzuka, moves to a new home. Little do they know that the neighbour’s house is infested with the spirit of Kayako and Toshio from the Grudge (Ju-on) films. Kayako, the ghastly figure who crawls along the floor in a typically broken staccato style as she strikes out at her victims, emitting that awful croaking sound. Toshio is the little white-faced ghostly kid who pops up everywhere, causing death and mayhem, elongating necks and snapping necks along the way.

Her professor takes Yuri to try to break the curse to an Exorcist, but her powers are no match for the malice, and the session ends up with corpses littering the venue, necks snapped. As she fades away, the exorcist tells Yuri to seek the help of a duo composed of a young blind girl with ESP and her partner, a young man with powers not unlike those possessed by Rajnikant in many of his movies. With the swish of a hand, he can impart almost magical abilities that come in very handy in fighting the dreadful predicament they face.

Finally, as the threat mounts and Suzuka’s parents meet a horrendous fate, the only way out appears to somehow set the stage by which the dreaded evil can be pitted against one another in the hope that they will destroy each other’s evil in a battle of supremacy.

Natsumi, meanwhile, attempts to take her own life but is beaten to it by a visit by the ghastly apparition of Sadako, and another hideous hairy situation follows. Hastily the video player is set up in Kayako’s home. Yuri has to draw the two evil powers out and make them confront each other and hope that the evil is defeated as the two forces collide in an ultimate clash of horrors.

Will they succeed in their endeavour or will they fail to vanquish the forces of malevolent evil? Will Sadako prevail, or will Kayako and Toshio prove sterner adversaries? All is revealed in a stunning showdown between the two, and if the plan works, they are to be drawn by Yuri into the well and trapped there forever.

The end is a very hairy situation in more ways than one, and the consequences of the experiment to crush the horror doesn’t go quite according to plan.

The film revives the two enormously successful franchises in Freddy Vs Jason style and puts on quite a spectacle, but does it have the fear factor of the initial Ringu or Ju-on series? Maybe not, but it is an entertaining ride all the same and has enough humour to keep things from getting too dark. Things are handled with more than a pinch of salt. Some of the dialogue is delivered with poker-faced seriousness but undercut with obvious doses of humour which lightens the mood and keeps the film from getting overly serious.

Horror hasn’t found a new direction of late, and the torture porn thing is excessive. Sadako vs Kayako comes as a delightfully whimsical little experience, not perhaps anywhere near as terrifying as its predecessors but certainly almost as enjoyable. With Rings right around the corner, the world should be ready to welcome back Sadako from her enforced sabbatical. Good fun, if unlikely to give anybody nightmares like the initial Ringu was more than capable of – money and time well spent.