The Grudge: A Retrospective

Well, we have done a retrospective on The Ring franchise, so it makes sense to do the same to its sisterly series: The Grudge. Better known as Ju-On in Japan, the series was created by Takashi Shimizu, who made a bone-chilling premise. I caught the American remake on television and it scared the hell out of me, giving me nightmares for a long time. Both The Ring and The Grudge are both creepy, unsettling experiences that thrive in unnerving the audience.

Ju-On revolves around a cursed haunted house in suburban Tokyo, where a family were murdered through violent means, and their ghosts return as unstoppable, vengeful, and very angry, restless spirits. The housewife Kayako Saeki had an obsessive crush on her son’s teacher. Her husband Takeo found out, went berserk, and broke her neck. Depending on the often confusing continuity, he may have also killed their son Toshio, and his pet cat too. Anyone who steps into the house is doomed, and will eventually be consumed by the curse, or even becoming a part of it. Kayako’s signature, disturbing, croaky death rattle, and Toshio’s meowing taunts have cemented their place in my mind.

Each film is told through a series of vignettes focusing on different characters, though often in a disorganized, non-linear fashion, so each film jumps around a lot in its own timeline. Each film, at least in the Japanese series, connect to one another through minor scenes or background events. The franchise consists of two short films, two TV movies, two cinematic releases, two back-to-back spin-offs, a reboot and sequel, an American trilogy, and a crossover with The Ring. But, remarkably, it feels like the same film has been remade over and over again. The same things often happen, and it can make The Grudge a little tiring if you intend on watching the whole franchise.

Ju-On: The Curse

The first “V-Cinema” television film released in 1998 by Takashi Shimizu, Ju-On: The Curse was preceded by two short films – “Katasumi” and “44444444”, which both tie-in to the film. Why on earth they didn’t just insert them into the film is beyond me? It revolves around the cursed Saeki house, and those who encounter it – as does every other film that follows.

The main plot focuses on Toshio’s teacher Kobayashi visiting the home, unaware that the Saeki family are all dead, and his student is a freaky, meowing ghost. This sequence has a lot of creepy moments, and eagle eyed viewers can spot some really creepy things in the background and wide shots. Kobayashi discovers Kayako’s body in the attic, and then receives a rather disturbing phone call from her jealous husband Takeo (Takashi Matsuyama), revealing he has murdered Kobayashi’s pregnant wife. Then, Kayako (Takako Fuji) emerges from the attic and slowly crawls down the stairs. Having a broken neck and ankles, she can only groan and crawl around the franchise, and in an increasingly hair-raising manner. Though, it doesn’t stop her from uttering her lone line of dialogue in the whole film, still enamoured with the teacher. And during all this, Toshio is meowing down the phone. We also see Kayako’s ghost then come for her murderous husband.

This whole sequence is severely unsettling, and perhaps the scariest that this franchise gets in terms of atmosphere. The performances by Fuji, Matsuyama, and Toshio’s actor Ryota Koyama are all fantastic and extremely frightening. Kayako’s marionette movements and death rattle, Toshio’s meowing, and Takeo’s dark breathing are creepy as hell. The trio, or at least Takako Fuji and Takashi Matsuyama, would play the roles throughout the Japanese series and then in the American remakes.

The remainder of the film focuses on the family who moved into the house after the Saekis died. Sadly, there isn’t much character growth in the film (or the series), and most characters are just canon fodder to be killed. One character has a phobia of cats, which doesn’t help when her friend has tons of cat toys that stare at her, hinting at the larger supernatural presence in the house. As we shall see, Kayako and co. can do just about whatever they want with reality in their house.

Another great moment is when one character disappears offscreen and returns as a shuffling zombie missing her bottom jaw, though the special effects are naff. Chiaki Kuriyama, best known from Battle Royale and Kill Bill, appears in a supporting role. The film doesn’t really have a final act, but rather a set up for the sequel, involving a pair of sibling estate agents plotting to sell the Saeki house to a new family. The sister, being psychic, a common occurrence in Japanese films, senses something is wrong with the house. But, her brother has already sold the house. The film has a memorable score by Geirî Ashiya, and the use of minimalistic scares works well.

Ju-On: The Curse 2

After the first film, its sequel is a half-film, since a majority of its footage is recycled from the original, specifically Kobayashi’s vignette, and the last fifteen minutes, which set up this film’s plot. The estate agent siblings, Tatsuya and Kyoko, sell the Saeki house, but soon face its influence. It turns out Tatsuya and his son Nobuyuki live in Kobayashi’s old apartment. Nobuyuki and Kyoko are left traumatised and clearly haunted after encountering a re-enactment of Takeo murdering Kobayashi’s wife. Tatsuya takes them to his parents’ house, but things go very wrong. This plot wraps up halfway through, and the last twenty-five minutes or so go through a series of increasingly silly scares to kill off the remaining cast of the first film. One thing of importance is established about the curse – it spreads like an infection. If a person goes into the house, but dies elsewhere, that location becomes infected with the curse.

Ju-On: The Grudge

The first cinematic release, Ju-On: The Grudge is commonly mistook for the first film in the series. Our main heroine or victim is Rika, a care worker who is assigned to care for an elderly woman living in the infamous house. She hears meowing behind a taped up closet door, and finds Toshio trapped inside. It has a great build up of tension. Rika then drops out of the story for, well, years. She doesn’t return til the third act, set years later, and is drawn suddenly back into the spider web and suffers a terrible fate. Yes, not only does the curse influence space, but also time.

In another subplot, a traumatised police officer Toyama has to confront his demons, his colleagues consumed by the curse. There is a terrifying moment where he watches security footage, and witnesses Kayako’s spectre lurch towards the camera, vanish, and then suddenly appear right in front of it with her eyes staring directly at him. Whilst trying to burn down the house, Toyama is flung forward in time and encounters a high school girl who regards him with familiarity. Toyama then dies offscreen, and this girl turns out to be his daughter, Izumi, who was introduced as child. Izumi is certainly one of the more tragic victims of the curse, tormented by the phantoms of friends she abandoned in the house after a dare went wrong.

I’d say the most eerie part of the film is the very end, showing desolate streets of Tokyo with tons of missing persons posters covering every wall and lamppost, implying the curse has spread far and wide.

Ju-On: The Grudge 2

The fourth installment can easily be considered the finale of the original series. While it has the usual tentpoles of the franchise, it has the most fascinating goals of the franchise. The film focuses on an actress named Kyoko who is caught in a car crash staged by Toshio, suffers a miscarriage, and her husband is left comatose. But, then Toshio appears to her in hospital, touching her stomach, and Kyoko ends up pregnant. We learn through the vignettes that Kyoko was involved in filming a TV show in the Saeki house, now a local legend. The other crew members get their own plotlines along the way, though it is mostly to be killed through creative means.

Kayako becomes particularly violent and unforgiving, murdering characters without mercy. The crew’s screenwriter is hung through an elaborate, time-displacing sequence, and the make up artist is, well, attacked by a wig that transforms into Kayako. Any sense of sympathy for Kayako and Toshio is gone, as they are depicted as malicious banshees, and Kayako is at her most frightening, now a lurching, bloodstained contortionist. The curse’s ability to play with time becomes even more absurd, with Toshio, still alive, steps out of the past into the present to interact with Kyoko. There’s a rather pointless subplot involving one of Izumi’s surviving friends, who is dragged through time by the curse, and then randomly dies.

The film’s ending is pretty amazing. Kyoko comes across Kayako’s personal diary and suddenly falls into labour. She is rushed into hospital, and gives birth to a reborn Kayako. This may have been the ghosts’ plan the whole time. Cut to several years later, the now toddler Kayako pushes Kyoko off a bridge for no reason, and departs into the unknown with her diary in hand. And this is, chronologically, the last time we see the character, leaving a lot of unanswered questions about the curse and timeline of the films. What about that apocalyptic ending of the last film? This by far the best of the Ju-On films, and if Takashi Shimizu intended on this to be the last hurrah, it was a wonderfully bleak film to end with.

The American Trilogy

Chronologically, the American trilogy was released next. The Grudge is basically a direct remake and fusion of the first and third Japanese films. Sarah Michelle Gellar fulfils Rika’s role, but sadly never whips out a vampire stake at any point to fight the ghosts. Takako Fuji and Takashi Matsuyama returned for the remakes, and are now even more terrifying as Kayako and Takeo. Being an American remake, a few familiar actors show up. Bill Pullman appears as Toshio’s teacher, and Ted Raimi appears in a supporting role. Japanese horror veteran Ryo Ishibashi (of Audition fame) appears as Detective Nakagawa. Originally, The Grudge was going to be a standalone film with a relatively happy ending, with the ghosts allowed to move on and find peace, but the ending was changed to make sequels.

The Grudge 2 takes elements from Ju-On: The Grudge 2, but does some original things to, unnecessarily trying to explain certain parts of the mythology. There are three stories: Amber Tamblyn (who had also appeared in The Ring) plays Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sister, who goes to Japan to retrieve her sister, but she is killed by Kayako; three high school students go into the house and you can guess what happens; and far away in Chicago, a family move into a tower block and find the neighbours are a little creepy. The three subplots all connect together, with a couple of surprises about who, what, and when take place.

The most interesting part is when Amber Tamblyn tracks down Kayako’s mother, a spirit medium who force fed a young Kayako bad spirits, mostly an excuse to explain why she is such a frightening ghost. Kayako then appears and kills her mother in what feels like one of the few personal kills in the film. I do particularly like the plot twist in the third act, and it opens up a whole new can of worms with the curse going international. Sadly, this was the last time Takako Fuji plays Kayako; like Boris Karloff, she worried her iconic role would turn stale, and bowed out from the role. Takashi Shimizu also stopped directing the films after this. Too bad the producers didn’t do the same.

The Grudge 3 is just pants. Kayako seems to have ditched the psychological, crawling-under-your-skin scares and just relies on American clichés and gore to kill people. Kayako’s sister Naoko, heads to Chicago to exorcise her sister from the tower block. Tenants of the building, specifically three siblings, Lisa, Max, and Rose, become involved in Naoko’s task. Toshio is played by Shimba Tsuchiya, making the young boy appear slightly older. Despite an engaging finale and interesting ideas, it is a poor end to the American trilogy, lacking Shimizu’s sense of chills and thrills, and relies on jumpscares and gore to frighten the audience.

White Ghost & Black Ghost

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Ju-On, two back-to-back spin-off films were released: White Ghost & Black Ghost. Aside from cameos by Toshio, these films are disassociated with the main characters and completely original. I do like this idea and exploring that possibility of there being more than one “grudge” in Tokyo. The Halloween series attempted this, but it backfired, since audiences were accustomed to Michael Myers. Both films are only an hour long and vaguely connected if you pay close attention.

White Ghost is closer in tone to the main series, involving another haunted house and a ghostly family. A teenager, Akane, mourns the death of her childhood friend Mirai, feeling guilt for not protecting her from her abusive uncle. After performing an Ouija game, Mirai’s ghost appears and haunts Akane. The film is told in a non-linear fashion as always, but has a few pointless subplots. Mirai’s ghost appeared to murder Akane’s father on Christmas Eve, but acts innocent and as a victim throughout the film. The film clumsily handles moments that are meant to be serious, but feel silly. What should feel like a serious movie, comes off as unintentionally hilarious.

Black Ghost is the better of the two, and has a far more original story. It is about a hospitalised girl, Fukie Yotoka, who shows signs of possession. Her mother and aunt discover Fukie’s body is shared with a cyst – the remains of an absorbed twin, which wants its own life. What a fantastic idea. It takes a couple of viewings to understand the plot, but it is a good one. The film has a rather tragic ending, and dramatic consequences for well-intentioned people. There is a minor tie-in to White Ghost, both involving the same house, so Black Ghost actually takes place before the other film. I would love to see more original Ju-On films, but sadly, the next film was yet another remake.

Ju-On: The Beginning of the End

A pointless remake with a pointless title. A remake and reboot of the original films, recycling plot elements and offers little original content. A teacher, this time a woman, goes to the Saeki house to find out why Toshio isn’t coming to school, while a group of school girls dare each other to go into the haunted house. As you might expect, the ghosts soon start to stalk and kill the characters. Rinse and repeat. Toshio gets a strange new origin story. He is a body-jumping ghost of a dead child, reborn anew as Toshio, only to then die again and become a ghost again. He’s stuck in this weird loop.

The titular grudge comes on a whim, when Kayako randomly tells Takeo that Toshio isn’t his child (technically he is, but he’s also the spirit of an already dead child). Takeo starts mugging at the camera, goes nuts, and murders his wife, and nukes the family cat in the microwave. What a creep! One thing of interest is that we see Kayako’s transformation into her iconic phantom appearance. A lot of the film is taken from the others – the broken jaw, the spooky diary, etc. There is a lot of silly moments in the films. Cardboard boxes shudder and jump around “menacingly”, one girl is dragged to her doom into a fridge (does Toshio know Zuul?), and then there’s the subway scare scene.

One character, Nanami, encounters the ghosts of her dead friends on the train. One is missing her lower jaw, and Nanami’s reaction isn’t exactly one of fright. She then turns around, and finds another friend has become a giant for some reason, and this causes her to scream in terror. Even the traditional “Kayako comes down the stairs” scenes gets mishandled. The camera hovers on the stairs, the music rises in anticipation, only for the camera to then swing to the right, revealing Kayako is upside-down on the ceiling. This whole film is a waste of time and not worth the watch. 

Ju-On: The Final Curse

 

The quote-on-quote final film of the Ju-On franchise (if Sadako vs. Kayako doesn’t count), Ju-On: The Final Curse is a sequel to the previous film, and is a little better. The teacher from the last film disappeared, and her sister becomes the main character. But her storyline is boring and treads through familiar water. What is really interesting is the other subplot, where Toshio (who can leave his mortal body) moves in with his cousin Reo and her mother. Toshio is still creepy as hell, but it does humanise him a little. Sadly, he brings the curse and his mother’s ghost with him, so his family meet unfortunate fates.

There’s a lovely scene where Toshio visits a terminally ill girl in hospital after she spots his ghost from afar. Rather than kill her, Toshio has a conversation with her, even letting her pet his cat (who somehow went from ginger to black). She states she’ll die soon, and offers to keep him company in the afterlife. This turns out to be a double-edged deal, since Toshio possesses her body and then dumps it aside, revealing the curse continues through him, and he can control bodies like puppets for some reason. The Final Curse isn’t a bad film, but focuses on the wrong story.

I feel that the Saeki family have run their course. White Ghost and Black Ghost found the right track, and if this franchise was to continue, it should follow a similar path by telling original stories. You can only make the same movie so many times.

Happy Halloween!

The Ring: A Retrospective

The Ring franchise is considered a founding factor in the interest in Japanese horror in the west, or rather, creating a string of mostly unnecessary remakes. Based on a series of novels written by Koji Suzuki (also author of Dark Water), the story of a spooky cursed videotape that kills anyone after seven days, has captured or rather terrorised the imagination of readers and viewers alike. Though the first book was a mystery horror, the sequels, Spiral and Loop, were a medical mystery, and a science fiction respectively. All have engaging stories and fantastic plot twists that explore the sinister virus that originates from the videotape, rather than a haunting curse as depicted in the movies.

 The franchise reflects modern fears of society, including a fear of technology, urban legends, illnesses, unexpected pregnancy, and fear of the unknown. The main antagonist, Sadako Yamamura (aka Samara Morgan, aka Park Eun-Suh), has earned her spot in popular culture, taking inspiration from Japanese folklore and mythology. The Ring remains my favourite horror franchise, and just about the only one where I’ve read and watched every major piece of media related to it. For this, I’ll be giving mini-reviews of each film and TV serial based on the books, with obvious spoilers ahead.

Ring: Kanzenban (1995)

Ring: Kanzenban was the first attempt to adapt Ring as a TV serial, but is a poor attempt with signs of a lack of a budget. Though a close adaptation of the book, it does take bizarre liberties, and has a strange focus on being everything but a horror story. Kazuyuki Asakawa (Katsunori Takahashi), a journalist, investigates the mysterious death of niece, discovering the existence of a cursed videotape, which he watches, and learns he has seven days to live. He teams up with his friend Ryuji Takayama (Yoshio Harada), Asakawa investigates the tape’s origins, leading him to the psychic Sadako Yamamura (Ayane Miura), thrown down a well long ago. Aside from the incredibly poor quality, the TV series decides to throw in some more adult content at the expense of telling a decent mystery.

Ring: The Final Chapter (1999)

Yes, this did come out a year after the 1998 Japanese movie, but it made sense to review it before getting to the movies. Ring: The Final Chapter is one of two TV series adapting the books, with a few liberties, and inspiration from the film. Not a clue why it is called “The Final Chapter” since this is one of many chapters in The Ring’s chronicles. It follows the story of the novel and film, though the cursed videotape is reimagined as a recording of a pop idol’s music video, extending the countdown to death to roughly two weeks. Asakawa (Toshiro Yanagiba) is a lot more likeable now compared to Kanzenban’s whiny version. The series meanders quite a lot, drags its feet, and Tomoya Nagase as the weirdest portrayal of Ryuji Takayama yet. Had a limited budget, feels a little sluggish, and has pacing issues, but is a good show altogether.

Rasen: The Series (1999)

The sequel to The Final Chapter, Rasen is based on the second novel Spiral. Like the first season, it takes a lot of liberties with the story. Rasen involves a teacher, Mitsuo Ando, a bereaved father, investigating the cursed videotape (now on CD!), and the biological mysteries of Sadako’s genes, that can create clones of the dead. Okay, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that is the short version. It gives the characters some great moments of jeopardy, and hard choices to make between their loved ones and the world. By far, the best part of the series in the King of Terror subplot, a murder-mystery terrorism plot involving a sinister figure manipulating characters behind the scenes. It is fun trying to guess who this character actually is, and their origins are even more terrifying than those of Sadako Yamamura.

Ring (1998)

The synonymous Japanese horror film, Ring propelled western interest in Asian horror, leading to a string of remakes. The film was directed by Hideo Nakata, who also directed the sequel, the American sequel, and the brilliant Dark Water. Perhaps the greatest element of the movie is its chilling atmosphere and frights, projecting a constant sense of dread throughout. This sort of scare makes for a much better horror film than cheap jump scares. There is an obvious budget, but the use of special effects works fine for the time. Negative shots are used to symbolise death, etc. My one complaint is that the DVD copy I have is ridiculously dark and grainy in some places, particularly in the night scenes, making it hard to tell what's going on.

Asakawa is reimagined as a woman, Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima), a workaholic journalist. She has a young psychic son named Yoichi, and Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada) is her ex-husband. The film’s plot takes a lot of liberties with the novel, rewriting Sadako’s backstory too. As a child, she murdered a journalist, her mother went nuts and committed suicide by throwing herself into a volcano, and Sadako is eventually thrown down a well by her father Dr. Ikuma. The film has heavy themes of parental neglect, responsibility, and examines the climate of Japanese society at the time.

The film has a lot of chills. It is implied that the ghosts of Sadako’s victims become her slaves. The cursed videotape itself feels alien in tone, with abnormal visuals and sounds. Of course, the highlight is Sadako emerging from the television. She was played by kabuki actress Rie Ino, whose creepy movements were then played backgrounds to give Sadako an inhuman quality about her. The score was composed by Kenji Kawai, who also did the score for Ghost in the Shell. Ring is a fantastic film, and in my opinion, one of the best horror films made. The film gained a prequel, and two sequels, though the first of which was retconned.

Rasen (1998)

Not many people are aware of this film. It was originally the direct sequel to Ring, released mere weeks after the original in order to keep public interest in the franchise. Only problem was no one went to see it, or knew it was in cinemas. It is a close adaptation of the book Spiral, abandoning the more supernatural elements in favour of a medical mystery. Lacking scares and naff quality, Rasen revealed the cursed videotape contains a mutated virus which can cause heart failure, but also can cause a fast-paced mystical pregnancy in women if they conceive during their cursing. Sadako, played wonderfully by Saeki Hinako, is back from the dead and offers the hero, Mitsuo Ando, the chance to resurrect his dead son, but at the cost of spreading the videotape across the world. Though it has some interesting ideas, the film’s quality and completely differentiation from Ring made it unpopular. It was subsequently retconned and a new film, directed by Hideo Nakata, was made: Ring 2.

Ring 2 (1999)

 

The new sequel to Ring, Ring 2 is better than Rasen but does have its own share of problems. There is a lot going on in the film, bringing back the whole cast of the original, and takes place two weeks after. Ryuji Takayama is dead, Asakawa and Yoichi are missing, and her elderly father has died after watching the tape. Mai Takano (Miki Nakatani), Ryuji’s student, searches for answers to his death, tracking down Asakawa and Yoichi, who has become mute and his powers are influenced by Sadako’s power. There are a lot of subplots in the film – a mad scientist hopes to master psychic energy; Sadako’s uncle has to collect her body (revealing Sadako was actually alive in the well for thirty years!); and a journalist named Okazaki dooms both himself and a teenager when he begins researching the cursed videotape and makes cowardly moves to save his own skin. The finale is certainly a weird one, but ends with a briefly touching moment where Sadako confronts the heroes as they escape the well, and gives in to her fate as being trapped forever. Ring 2 has a lot of problems, particularly with pacing, isn’t very scary aside from a couple of scenes, and deflates once the whole “Exorcist but with psychic energy and a swimming pool” subplot takes centre stage.

Ring 0 (2000)

A prequel to the first film, Ring 0 is based on the short story “The Birthday”, detailing Sadako’s time in a theatre troupe and even fell in love with a young man named Hiroshi Toyama. Ring 0 is effectively a Japanese remake of Carrie – a socially ostracized girl has immense psychic powers, finds love, something goes wrong, and she kills everybody. Though, I actually like this film more than Carrie. Sadako Yamamura is the protagonist of the film, played wonderfully by Yukie Nakama, a shy introvert who hides her shady past and just wants to be an actress. She falls in love with Toyama, the sound operator, and their romance is rather sweet. Things go to hell in the third act, involving a vengeful journalist orchestrating Sadako’s murder, but she is revived when it turns out she has an evil twin living with her father. In a wild plot twist, turns out Sadako split into two identical twins, one good and one evil, the latter tormenting the good Sadako for years. The film then goes from absolutely terrifying to tearjerking towards the end, as you know, Sadako is inevitably going to be thrown down a well and become the vengeful ghost we know and fear.

The Ring Virus (1999)

The Japanese film was such a success that South Korea decided to remake it a year after it came out. The Ring Virus is unfortunately a total dullfest. It directs the novel a little closer, mixing various elements from virtually all the past adaptations of the book, including the dodgy incest stuff from Kanzenban. The Korean version of Reiko Asakawa is emotionless and rigid, and her actress never comes off as having any interest in giving a good performance. Even when she watches the videotape, she looks bored, and somehow even makes throwing up in a toilet looked staged. Even the scene where Sadako (or Park Eun-Suh) emerges from a TV is rubbish. Why did the cinematographer think having a bright room would be a menacing setting for the iconic shot of the movie? Awful stuff.

The Ring (2002)

And now onto the other main event. The American remake of Ring is probably better known than the Japanese film, and in some ways, is better, or at least in quality. Directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, The Ring is a mostly superb adaptation, with a chilling atmosphere, likeable characters, and aside from a couple of jumpscares, has some great spooky moments. Naomi Watts carries most of the film as Rachel Keller (i.e. Asakawa), following the basic plot of the cursed videotape, etc. She has a strangely creepy son named Aidan (David Dorfman), who reminds me of Haley Joel Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense. This kid even finds out the important plot details later and decides NOT to inform his mother of these dreadful twists until its too late.

The cursed videotape is like something from David Lynch or David Cronenberg. Sadako is reworked as Samara Morgan (Daveigh Chase), a delightfully creepy little girl who “never sleeps”, and has uncontrolled psychic powers that drove her foster parents crazy, murdering all their prize-winning horses after she was locked in the barn. The film rather cleverly sets up Samara as an innocent victim with powers she has no control over. But, then in the final scenes, it is implied Samara is actually a total sociopath, manipulating Rachel and the audience all along. The sombre violin-based score by Hans Zimmer is great, and the film is forever shot in this slightly blue tint, like a dated videotape. The film also pays homages to Alfred Hitchcock throughout the film. The film was followed by a short film tying the sequel to it, and then would gain another sequel in 2017.

Rings (2005 short film)

 

This decent short film is set between the first and second American movies, following a rather idiotic boy as he joins a cult that watches Samara’s videotape in turn and record what they experience. The short was directed by Jonathan Liebesman of all people, who’d direct the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films. How did he go from this to that? The film does well to create a sense of mystery about the tape, studying the impact of trends and urban legends on the young. There are genuine frights in the film, it makes for a good psychological drama, with Samara at her scariest. Still, that moment when a character vomits up a giant CGI centipede takes you out of the movie.

The Ring Two (2005)

The Ring Two is a sequel that doesn’t know its own identity. Gore Verbinski was directing Pirates of the Caribbean, so Hideo Nakata was brought in to direct. The end result is a bit of a palaver, trying and failing to mix the western and eastern horror traditions together. Rachel and Aidan have moved to Oregon, but Samara somehow tracks them down with the intent on making Rachel her new mother by possessing Aidan's body. While the audience kinda figures out what’s going on, Rachel takes half the movie to. Samara breaks her own established rules in order to possess Aidan, and ends up attracting the attention of killer CGI deer. Yes, killer deer. Rachel eventually tracks down Samara’s biological mother, Evelyn, played by noneother than Sissy Spacek. The Carrie similarities have come full circle.

The attempt to blend western and eastern horror tropes just don’t work here. There’s a scene where the Samara-possessed Aidan murders a psychiatrist. But, it’s literally a two minute sequence where the characters are just sitting there, with the implication that Samara is filling the doctor’s mind with nightmarish imagery, leading her to kill herself. But, we don’t see it, and it feels really awkward to sit through. The film ends with Rachel temporarily drowning Aidan to exorcise Samara, and then is sucked through a TV into Samara’s monochromatic world. She escapes the well, pursued by Samara’s true freaky self, and Rachel traps her in the well again. The Ring Two is all over the place in terms of execution. I admire Nakata for trying to bring his signature aesthetic to the American films, but it sadly doesn’t work.

Sadako 3D (2012)

Twelve years after the last Ring film, Sadako Yamamura returned to her native country in a new 3D film that is weird to say the least, and not in a good way. In someway a soft reboot, Sadako 3D is a tacky and very silly film that felt like an excuse to just make a 3D film using an established franchise. The worst element is the titular 3D element, and constantly relies on Sadako crawling out of televisions to spook the audience. It’s like the filmmakers never watched the past movies, and only know the character from iconography alone.

It adapts one of Koji Suzuki’s newest novel “S”, focusing on a suicide video by Seiji Kashiwada (Yusuke Yamamoto), who plots to resurrect Sadako in a human host (i.e. whoever watches the video). Akane Ayukawa (Satomi Ishihara) is the designated target, having her own psychic powers. Akane and her boyfriend Takanori Ando (Koji Seto of Kamen Rider fame) flee a lot from Sadako, but she takes Takanori captive. Akane and cop Detective Nakamura team up to save him. The death scenes are hilariously bad. One character hangs himself, but his body is obviously a window shop dummy. The third act then completely jumps the shark, with Akane being chased by long-legged CGI grasshopper Sadako monsters. This film is nuts and a rubbish attempt to revive the dormant franchise. The one thing I’ll praise the film for is taking the logical route and putting Sadako on the internet. 

Sadako 2 (2014)

The sequel to Sadako 3D is slightly better, but still has a lot of problems. Akane falls pregnant and apparently dies, leaving her daughter Nagi in the care of Takanori’s sister Fuko. Nagi is a creepy girl to say the least, and it is quickly implied that she may be the reborn Sadako, murdering people. Fuko is dealing with her own trauma, having witnessed her mother’s suicide years ago, and isn’t very welcoming to death. The cursed videotape has evolved into pushing people into killing themselves, and Seiji Kashiwada has been arrested facing execution. A lot of the time, Sadako 2 has a melancholic mood, but manages to tell a relatively decent story. Unfortunately, there is a larger plot going on that is never really explained, too many unanswered questions that appear to be setting up unfulfilled sequels, and the film wastes too much time floundering around trying to figure out what to do.

Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

A crossover between Ring and the Ju-On/The Grudge franchise. This has a lot of potential, bringing together Japan’s most scariest ghosts – Sadako and Kayako Saeko, but unfortunately wastes it. Though the film succeeds in capturing the sense of dread both prominent horror franchises have, the actual crossover event doesn’t happen until the last ten minutes. Two girls are separately cursed by the titular ghosts, eventually leading them to team up with an exorcist, who suggests being cursed twice and make Sadako and Kayako fight each other, to cancel out the curses. There are a couple of effective scenes, like when a bullied boy uses Kayako’s haunted house to get revenge on his tormentors. The fight itself between Sadako and Kayako is brief but pretty great fun, showing their conflicting powers. And the ending is equally bizarre but a set up for something awesome that we’ll probably never get to see.

Rings (2017)

The beleaguered third film in the American series, Rings, may have come a bit too late to be relevant, but it is a good film. Taking inspiration from the short film, Rings involves a young woman named Julia (Matilda Lutz) discovering her college boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe) is part of the cursed videotape cult, now reimagined as a social experiment orchestrated by Leonard off The Big Bang Theory. With Holt running out of time, Julia decides to watch Samara’s videotape herself and becomes cursed. But, her video experience is a little different from the others, viewing a new version of the tape, and gains a strange mark on her hand. It eventually becomes clear that Samara wants Julia and Holt to find and bury her mortal remains. Very continuity heavy, the film explores more of Samara’s backstory, with Vincent D’Onofrio appearing as Samara’s blind, evil, reverend father. Not exactly the backstory that I had expected, but it’s okay. The film takes a lot of visuals and influence from The Ring, using Hans Zimmer’s old score, and succeeds in making Samara scary again, even answering a couple of questions about Samara’s powers and restrictions that could be considered plot holes.

Movies and Mass Hysteria

Halloween is fast approaching, but for shops, it is the start of the build up to Christmas. Seriously, there are already Christmas displays in Tesco and Sainsbury. Wait until November 1^st for goodness sake!

Anyway, with Halloween soon, and after watching American Gods again, I was inspired to write this article to discuss something spooky, but also very fascinating. Our ability to be easily tricked into thinking a piece of fiction is real and actually happening. Now, we’re not here to psychoanalyse mankind or any such nonsense. We’re here to look back at three pieces of media that terrorised their audiences, and the public reaction and backlash that followed. The cleverness of these works was that they were treated as real events, both within the scripts, scheduling, and the reactions from the public.

“Mass delusions are as old as I am. I was there when the Martians invaded in 1938. What a panic. Powerful panic. Now there are starmen waiting in the sky. They believed it was true, and it was.” – Media, American Gods.

WAR OF THE WORLDS

The War of the Worlds was an infamous radio drama, narrated by Orson Welles, and aired in America in 1938. Adapting H.G. Wells novel, the play was a part of the anthology series “The Mercury Theatre on the Air”, broadcast over CBS on October 30^th, 1938 for Halloween. The drama’s format was a simulated live news broadcast, which was interrupted by reports of Martians invading the United States. The idea for the play came from a British radio hoax that occurred in 1926, with a fictional riot occurring in London. A similar concept happened during an Australian broadcast in 1927.

The show lasted forty minutes, and in that space, listeners were convinced that aliens were invading, men travelled long distances, war broke out, cabinet meetings occurred, and savage, violent battles occurred on land and in the sky between soldiers and the invading Martians. Interestingly, the play actually started with an alternate version of the novel’s opening paragraphs – so, you’d think some listeners would have realised this broadcast was fictional. At the end of the broadcast, during which panic broke out, Welles threw in a last minute disclaimer, revealing the whole thing was a Halloween ruse.

The CBS producers, staff, and actors were flooded with angry calls, panicked executives and censors ordering the broadcast to either be shut down, or interrupted to make it clear the play was fictional. Police allegedly stormed the studio to arrest Orson Welles and co. for causing mass panic. Journalists raced to confront those involved with the broadcast to either confirm or deny the deaths and mass mayhem reported in the play, and then interrogate them on the reasoning behind their actions. There have been suggestions that the nationwide mass hysteria was not as widespread as history and journalism have suggested. Welles received quite the telling off from the angry mob brigade, ushering an apology to the press and public for the chaos caused.

 Some listeners only heard half the broadcast, and mistook it for the start of what would become World War II, which would begin less than a year later. The events of the Munich Agreement was also theorised to have put people on edge for days, and The War of the Worlds simply pushed them over the edge. There was an evident backlash, with the newspaper lording over the radio for their “evil” ways, yet used the play to stir the hysteria, convince everyone that the whole country when completely mad during those forty minutes.

In 1940, Orson Welles and H.G. Wells actually met and had a radio interview in San Antonio together. Wells dismissed the alleged public hysteria with good humour, believing it was simple Halloween fun. The two and the host discussed the nature of the radio play and the public reaction, concluding it was simply America responding as they would to a playful prank. H.G. suggested that America could still get away with messing around with the idea of terror, since World War II had not arrived at their doorstep yet, and they were dealing with it in a manner. Orson Welles then responded with, “Until it ceases to be a game.”

Nowadays, The War of the Worlds radio play has been mythologised thanks to its exaggerated reaction from the public. It had a limited reach for an audience, and the widespread lunacy was not as prominent as the newspapers suggested.

But, history repeats, only this time it was in the United Kingdom where mass hysteria caused mayhem on Halloween.

GHOSTWATCH

The BBC’s Ghostwatch, written by Stephen Volk, aired on October 31^st, 1992. A drama-mockumentary stylised as a live broadcast on BBC One, Ghostwatch was actually recorded weeks in advance, and like War of the Worlds, it was mistaken for an actual event, and received quite the backlash from the gullible, frightened public.

Ghostwatch was treated as a live broadcast, focusing on “the most haunted house in Britain”, and the presenters were performing an on-air investigation into the existence of the supernatural, with the hope of seeing an actual ghost. In the fictional premise, Pamela Early lived on Foxhill Drive, Northolt, Greater London, with her two daughters Suzanne and Kim. The family have been tormented for months by a threatening poltergeist they have nicknamed Mr. Pipes, who appears as a disfigured man in a dress, bangs on the pipes (hence the name), and lurks in the house’s barricaded cellar. The two girls are the victims of Pipes – Suzanne has been repeatedly possessed by him, while the other appears to have clairvoyant powers and repeatedly claims that “Pipes wants to see everybody”.

On hand are a handful of familiar icons of British television – Michael Parkinson was the sceptical presenter in the studio, Craig Charles (of Red Dwarf) was on the street interviewing the locals, while Sarah Greene played the role of the intrepid reporter, venturing into the house with her film crew to search for ghosts. During all this, Parkinson says the viewers get call the BBC phone switchboard and speak to Mike Smith, Greene’s husband, and share their own ghost stories. Those who called the number were informed via recording that it was actually a work of fiction and not live. The problem was that the switchboard did get overloaded, so few people truly learnt the actual nature of the programme.

As the show went on, things started getting freaky in the house. Throughout the programme, guests could potentially spot Mr. Pipes standing menacingly in the background of certain scenes. His backstory is revealed to be terrifying, actually a pedophilic lunatic who hung himself in the house’s cellar and his face was eaten by cats. But, then it turns out he was possessed by the ghost of a Victorian-era child killer named Mother Seddons, hence why Pipes wore a dress. There is even a hint that these events in the neighbourhood have been going on for centuries, like Pennywise from It is responsible for everything.

 

More and more viewers call and claim they are seeing Pipes in the house. Suzanne gets possessed again, Greene’s sound operator gets a mirror smashed over his head, and then all hell breaks loose in the studio. It becomes clear that Mr. Pipes has been using the broadcast to create a nationwide séance circle, terrorising the nation through their TV sets. Sarah Greene is sucked into the cellar and vanishes, whilst Parkinson is possessed by the phantom cats, ending the broadcast.

Much like War of the Worlds, many viewers missed the titles, including that it was written by Stephen Volk, clearly indicating it was a work of fiction. Like the backlash with the radio drama, many people were angered that they had been deceived, that the eternally trusted BBC had aired something so scary (on Halloween), etc. The BBC received many frightened and angry calls during and after the programme. The producers were dragged onto the show BiteBack to be punished by a verbal firing squad. Sarah Greene, alive and well, popped up in CBBC to assure children she did not get sucked into hell. Allegedly, people were hospitalised, three pregnant women went into labour, and one woman got so irate, she demanded that compensation for a pair of new jeans for her husband…

Still, there was a serious incident where a young man with learning difficulties committed suicide five days after Ghostwatch aired, and his suicide note appeared to lay the blame on the show. Ghostwatch has subsequently been considered non-existent by the BBC, never airing it on television again, though they have re-released the mockumentary on DVD several times over the years. The show has had influence on many other films and shows. The silly ghost-hunting shows on both sides of the Atlantic took influence from Ghostwatch, and films like Paranormal Activity, and The Blair Witch Project. Speaking of which…

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 

In 1994, three filmmakers ventured into the Black Hills Forest near Burkittsville, Maryland, in search of the mythological Blair Witch. They were never seen again. A year later, film footage was discovered in the woods and the truth behind their disappearance was revealed in one of the scariest films of all-time.

Okay, that is a load of rubbish, but that was the genius of the movie. The low budget found footage film had such a brilliant and convincing story, that many people believed the footage was real. In the film, Heather, Josh, and Mike (played by actors who are very much alive) get lost in the woods and tormented by an unseen entity, who may or may not be the Blair Witch. The whole film is fictional and incredibly well executed. The internet was still in its infancy, and the viral marketing used for The Blair Witch Project was fantastic. An elaborate lore was crafted around the witch and her curse over Burkittsville – imagined in the film as being built over a fictional, abandoned town called Blair, who trialled the witch, Elly Kedward, and left her to die in the woods.

The marketing and presentation of the film as a true story was so convincing, that hordes of tourists flooded Burkittsville to find the truth – even though it was complete fiction. Bad news for Burkittsville, who have forever been associated with the Blair Witch. Heck, someone even stole the town’s population sign, since it appeared in the movie, and they had to replace it. The Blair Witch Project gained a rather crumby sequel, Book of Shadows, and included the reactions of both tourists and Burkittsville in the plot. The film gained a second sequel in 2016. The Blair Witch Project, while not the first found footage movie, certainly proved to be the most successful. Films like Rec and Cloverfield were inspired by its success.

It is fascinating how this sort of metafiction pops up every now again, and has the same or a similar impact upon the public imagination. The War of the Worlds allegedly caused mass hysteria, in likely relation to the outbreak of war. Ghostwatch, while not an actual live recording, was cleverly treated as one, and the unsuspecting BBC viewership had never experienced such a show before. And The Blair Witch Project used such a brilliant marketing campaign to convince people to see the movie. I suspect the media of the 1930s greatly exaggerated the reaction of the radio play, and a lot of people missed the opening titles of Ghostwatch, which stated the show was a work of fiction. And Blair Witch…well, I guess some folks really enjoyed the film, and some really bought its authenticity.

I wonder what will happen if and when another one of these inventive “mass hysteria” pieces of media occurs.