Sadako VS Kayako (2016) - Bakemono Royale!
Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian horror cinema; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei, more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite.
Hair We Are Now - Entertain Us?
Whether you're on Team Sadako or Team Kayako, it's fair to say that not many J-Horror fans were on Team Koji Shiraishi after his 2016 release: Sadako VS Kayako.
Both Sadako Yamamura and Kayako Saeki are undisputed icons of the J-Horror genre, inspiration for the (now) over-used hair-scare in Western horror, and the cause of many a bedroom light to be left on since 1998.
Victims of male violence, these women now wreak spectral, and psychological, vengeance on any innocent party who stumble across either their Cursed Video Tape or House of Death.
Regardless of who you personally find scarier, we can all agree that being haunted by one of these ghouls on their own is bad enough. The big screen union of these two titans of terror should have been an epic fright feat, traumatising a whole new generation of young horror fans and possibly even rejuvenating the genre as a whole.
So, what went wrong? Let's break it down.
Yamamura-Mia - Hair We Go Again!
The film kicks off with an opening reminiscent of The Grudge. Social Worker Tachibana has come calling on kindly old Yasue-san, only to find Yasue-san's gruesome corpse beneath a static-ing TV set, a mysterious VHS cassette peeping out - and the first jump scare of Sadako peeping too.
A fairly promising start, my judgement was firmly reserved.
Next, we're introduced to the lead trio of protagonists. The equally kawaii (and fashionable) students Natsumi (Aimi Satsukawa) and Yuri (Mizuki Yamamoto) are attending a lecture held by Professor Shinichi Morishige (Masahiro Komoto.)
Topics under discussion by Morishige are: The Slit-Mouthed Woman, Hanako of The Toilet, Red Cape, Boy Under Bed, The House of Death, and, The Cursed Video. Other than the fact that it's a J-Nerdy little thrill to hear such well-known urban legends mentioned, what's interesting is that The House of Death and The Cursed Video refer to, none other than Kayako and Sadako.
As a Meta-a-Fact...
In Shiraishi's universe, both Kayako and Sadako are common known urban legends, existing in the one plane. So far, so good. This is an angle I can on board with.
However, Morishige argues in his lecture that while technically Kayako and Sadako exist as urban legends, (along side the real world ones such as Hanako and Slit-Mouthed Woman etc. - and also, Kayako's House of Death was inspired by a real life Tokyo House of Death, very urban legend within an urban legend) they are just that.
Also, no one ever knows anyone first hand who has ever experienced an urban legend. It's all just a "cultural transmission of storytelling", and also, Morishige would sell his soul to get his hands on a real-life copy of the Cursed Video and meet Sadako at long last.
Pity it's just an urban legend, and not real.
Oh wait. As a matter of fact...
Eye Put a Curse On You!
Natsumi and Yuri have just so happened to have recently acquired an old VCR with a disgusting, unnamed VHS inside. Not only that, but Keiko, the young girl at the second-hand shop who sold it to them, previously watched the video inside for larfs - and shockingly, and dramatically, dies before the viewer's eyes seven days to the second of her initial watching of the tape.
I do hope hope Natsumi and Yuri have the good sense not to watch the tape as we- oh no. Natsumi watched it.
Enter the two girls in Morishige's office, beseeching his assistance to save Natsumi from her grisly fate. This sensible, older academic will surely offer some soli-
Aaaand now Morishige's watched it and is going to die in seven days too.
Great.
Living Next Door To Malice...
Okay, a little Sadako-heavy. Time to put some Ju-on in there. Needs more Ju-on.
Now we meet the extremely mopey and annoying Suzuka (Tina Tamashiro) who's new to the neighbourhood and, as fate would have it, now lives next door to the infamous House of Death, or as we know it, The Saeki Family Home.
Suzuka tries in vain to ignore the classroom rumours about the haunted house next door, but when she stumbles upon a wee lad being bullied into the house by three of his equally tiny and snot-nosed peers, she can't but help interfere. Besides, the psychic lure of the House of Death is too strong to resist.
Just like in the main Grudge movies, the abandoned Saeki house has become the site of many a test-of-courage or source of mischief for local teens and schoolkids. The most horrific example of this is seen in Ju-on: Origins (2020).
What follows once Suzuka enters the Grudge house is some oddly hokey and comical horror FX, as the Saeki family give the local bullies their comeuppance. Child ghost Toshio is now presented as an older pre-teen/teen, and, with his baggy underpants and gangly limbs - looks and moves more like Mowgli from The Jungle Book than a true ghost.
The combination of the tacked-on feel of this rather short Ju-on storyline, and the poor effects, start to weaken my resolve to just enjoy this for what it is.
Beware! Hair!
After a brief sojourn to Kayako's plot, we move back swiftly to Sadako's. In this universe, contrary to every Ringu lore in existence, sharing the Cursed Video doesn't break the curse. The film never actually reveals a way to un-do the hex. This feels more like an unfinished piece of plot, rather than a conscious character choice for The Unbreakable Sadako Yamamura.
I was fine with Shiraishi changing the content of the Cursed Video. Who's to say that after nearly three decades down that well Sadako didn't just feel like changing things up visually. The "new" Cursed Video is still eerie, but this feels too deviant a change to the original cannon.
Such is their un-un-curse-able plight, Morishige and Natsumi must now seek out the help of Horyu-san the Exorcist.
All this takes up roughly the first fifty minutes of the film, and even with the weaker Ju-on plot awkwardly pasted in, at this point - it's still a perfectly cromulent addition to the Ringu, and I guess Ju-on, franchise.
Been Climbing Out That Well...
What follows next after (the rather badass) Horyu-san's exorcism of Sadako from Natsumi fails drastically - is ridiculous. As in, RIDICULOUS.
Enter, for some reason, the famous (and abrasive) paranormal investigator Keizo Tokiwa (Battle Royale's Masanobu Ando) and his blind side-kick: a psychic little girl called Tamao. They're here to somewhat save the day in as rude and sarcastic a way as possible.
These two? I could have done without. They feel like characters from a live action manga adaptation wandered onto the wrong film set one day and Koji Shiraishi was just like "Well, since you're here!"
At some point along the way Yuri also (stupidly) watches the Cursed Video and now needs un-cursing too. Good thing Horyu-san's Exorcism Temple was located on the same street as Kayako's house, (!?) because that gives Keizo an idea for a ludicrously far-fetched and messy plan.
To eliminate one curse? Give yourself... another curse.
Keizo intends to defeat Sadako by awakening Kayako and letting the two of them knock seven (days!) bells out of each other - thus... ending the curse?
To me, that seems like a lot could go wrong. Say for argument's sake, you DO eliminate the Sadako curse, but then what if you're stuck with the Kayako curse? Or, what if you just doubly curse yourself? OR. What if Sadako and Kayako decide not to fight each other, but team up and kick Keizo and his beret-wearing side kick's ass?
It's... not logical.
And feels like lazy writing. Most of my issues with Sadako VS Kayako stem from lazy, unfinished feeling writing, and an unforgivable amount of loose-ends.
Let's Get Ready To Rumble!
The juxtaposition between serious thriller and comedy could have been less jarring. The remainder of the film descends into a chaotic brawl between Sadako and Kayako; literally bitch-slapping and dragging each other around Kayako's kitchen floor, like two feuding sisters fighting over a shared lover on Jerry Springer.
Issues with Keizo and Tamao aside, and the farcical slap-stick descent of what was up to that point a solid, chilling watch, this is a fairly decent movie.
While Kayako did take a backseat here, her few appearances were effectively fore-shadowed and had me cheering out loud as she finally crawled down the stairs, croaking merrily. Sadako jump-scares were littered throughout, a far cry from Hideo Nakata's 1998 horrific (and sparse) Ringu reveal.
That being said, the wench got me every damn time! It was great fun.
Not all fun and games however! There was tremendous tension and unbearable dread thanks to some excellent acting on the part of Aimi Satsukawa's Natsumi. Natsumi's mental decline in the face of death was compelling and poignant, such a vulnerable portrayal.
" Hey Yuri, won't you die with me?"
Girl Power
Personally, (dunno about you) what I would have loved to have seen was a Sadako VS Kayako movie where a group of hapless students accidentally watch the Sadako tape in Kayako's house, thus incurring the wrath of the two ghouls simultaneously.
Being haunted in tandem, trying to solve how to break the curse while navigating the paranormal obstacle course of imminent death that is a Saeki Family Haunting - now THAT's a movie. But hey, Koji Shiraishi had his own ideas!
Again, regardless of your personal preference of ghoul, and the wasted opportunity that this movie was - we can all agree on the power of both Sadako and Kayako as game-changing, pop culture icons.
If you liked Sadako VS Kayako, you'll love Occult (2009)
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