I’ll be honest, this is one of the only Japanese horror movies I’ve seen (the two or three others I’ve watched were low budget affairs), but it’s given me some incentive to look deeper into the genre. If you don’t remember much of this one, take some time and watch it. This film helped bring the Japanese horror genre to my attention, and I’m thinking of taking some time to watch them.
Yesterday: Sadako 3D (Hanabusa, 2012)
Inspired to catch up on some of the latter Ring or Grudge movies I’ve missed, I thought I’d start with one I wasn’t going to pursue. I liked Ring (Nakata, 1998) (although it was nowhere near as good as many were suggesting at the time), I enjoyed American remake The Ring (Verbinski, 2002) and I even liked the sequel to the remake, The Ring Two (Nakata, 2005) but, mostly, the other Ring movies have been so-so and, currently holding a 3.8/10 with the IMDb, Sadako 3D held little interest for me. Well, I’ve seen it now and I think the 3.8 might be slightly generous.
A videoclip of a performance artist committing suicide is released onto the internet and develops traction as a “cursed” clip, apparently killing all who see it. The last thing the victims hear before they die is a woman’s voice proclaiming, “You are not the one.” The woman in question is Sadako Yamamura, the vengeful telekinetic monster thrown down a well years previously. She’s seeking a “perfect” host into whom her spirit can enter, making her whole again. That perfect host is Akane, another telekinetic who has chosen to hide her abilities, using them only sparingly for good reasons. Akane is a teacher and, when she saves a pupil from an attack by Sadako, Sadako gives chase. Will she catch her? Does anyone care?
Oh dear. In fairness, some of the ideas which update the technology involved have potential to serve the story quite well; the Ring mythos was always kind-of hamstrung by the notion that you’re f*cked, but only if you view a VHS videotape which is somehow doing the rounds. And the story itself isn’t all that bad; it’s not great, but these plots rarely are. But the execution is abysmal. Virtually all of the special effects are digital, and they are all laughably poor. There are umpteen opportunities for genuine scares within Sadako 3D, and every one of those opportunities is squandered in a burst of bog-standard cgi. There is some practical effects work late on but even then, the creature design is more humorous than horrifying.
The there’s the 3D. Now, I watched Sadako 3D in 2D (I think 3D is a f#cking travesty but that’s a different rant for a different day) but… well, movies which make good use of 3D - Avatar, Prometheus, Star Wars:The Force Awakens for example - use that 3D to give depth into the screen, as though the movie is being played out on a theatre stage. And if one chooses not to see films like that in 3D, there’s never a sense of missing out. There’s no effect which one has to accept is sh!t but would probably have looked good in 3D. Sadako 3D still wants to employ the hackneyed gimmick of pushing things out at the audience and, in any dimension, that’s just plain irritating, especially when said gimmick is repeatedly employed for the same tiny handful of reasons, over and over: Sadako’s hand shooting out of a monitor/tv screen/mobile phone; someone or other falling down a well from the perspective of the bottom of the well; lots of badly realised digital shattered glass flying about in slow motion. Ugh.
Ah well. I’ll be getting Sadako 3D 2 (Hanabusa, 2013) out of the way today and then, tomorrow,I’ll start on the Grudge pictures I’ve not seen yet. Hurrah.
2 Likes
I watched Ringu when it was a hype (never bothered with the remake), and thought it was only an okay horror exercise, nothing special. Therefore I never watched any of the sequels or imitations. I’m not even sure that I’ve seen the Grudge.
American version of Ringu is pretty good. Off course, you only need to see one or the other, no need to see them both as remake is pretty faithful to original.
And what about The Grudge? I checked a few clips on You Tube, don’t think I’ve seen it. Should I go for the Japanese original or is the remake equally good, better, or far worse?
I appear to be in something of a minority here because Don’t Breathe has enjoyed a lot of positive attention but: I thought it was decidedly average, with nobody to root for and daft motivation for the antagonist (I won’t elaborate out of deference to your request that our SWDB brethren go in with as little knowledge as possible although I’d have to say mate, it’s been out a while and most will probably know all about it by now).
Don’t know, I’ve only seen first two Japanese TV movies that were the start of the Ju-On series (Ju-On: The Curse and Ju-On: The Curse 2). The Grudge series started with third Ju-On movie (first teatrical release). I gave up on further installements because it started to become little bit repetative already in the second movie.
I’ll say you cannot go wrong with those two early ones. They are unbearingly creepy at times, real classics of modern day horror IMO.
1 Like
See, I would say they’re different enough to warrant looking at both of them, but if pushed I’d say that The Ring is one of those rare instances where the remake is (slighly) better than the original. Just IMO, like.
About Ringu/Ring: I’ve seen American The RIng first, then I saw Ringu. So Ringu experience was extremely watered down for me because I’ve seen The Ring. And The Ring I enjoyed massively, but I believe the same would be with Ringu had I seen it first.
About Don’t breathe: …best edge-of-your-seat thriller I’ve seen in some time with intelligent twists displaced with great sense of pace in the plot and the story that is believable enough for me. Lots of memorable scenes. One in the car: modern classic.
And now please stop discussing it 
Indeed, I saw Ju-on: The Grudge first from that franchise as most did, and I only saw Ju-on: The Curse and its sequel a couple of years ago. Ju-on: The Curse is fantastic; Ju-on: The Curse 2 suffers by spending almost half of its brief runtime recapping what happened in the first installment. It’s still good but a lot of time is wasted. I bloody love Ju-on: The Grudge, though, and if pressed to pick between that movie and its American remake I’d go with the Japanese original although there’s nothing wrong with the remake whatsoever. And, once you’re talking about sequels, I prefer The Grudge 2 (the sequel to the American remake) over Ju-on: The Grudge 2 (the sequel to the Japanese original). They’re completely different movies btw: one is not a remake of the other, they branch off of their respective predecessors in different directions altogether.
C’mon dude, seriously!
This movie was total garbage, it had me groaning the entire time. Literally nothing works and there are plot holes galore.
HELL COMMANDOS (Comando al Infierno - 1969)
In the days after the allied invasion in Normandy six American GI’s spend more time courting French ladies than fighting the enemy, but then they accidently kill the members of an elite group, trained for a special mission behind enemy lines. The officer who trained the elite soldiers (Guy Madison) tells them they will be court-marshaled unless they fill the boots of the men they accidently shot …
Like most of these low-budget Italian-Spanish war movies made in the Sixties, Hell Commandos robs the premise of an illustrious Hollywood movie - in this case The Dirty Dozen: the Dozen have become Half a Dozen and the misfits of the original movie have become Casanovas. This could give you the idea that it’s a spoof, but the violence is pretty nasty and the (sparse) jokes are rather sexist.
Director J.L. Merino is best known for his horror movies and the western Requiem per il Gringo / Duel in the Eclipse; his war-adventure is competently staged, with enough action for three movies (and some romance, melodrama and eroticism to boot). The acting is okay - and singer Rafaella Carrà is breathtakingly beautiful - but ultimately this idea of a group of womanizing no-goods taking the place of elite soldiers is bit too silly to work properly, even within the context of a genre not known (at all) for its credibility. The film isn’t helped either by a couple of half-witted jokes (one involving German shepherds is too silly for words) and some utterly stupid dialogue. One French girl after being kissed by an American dressed in Nazi disguise:
“You’re not German!”
“How did you know?”
“I have experience.”
I think the US Ring is much better than the original. Verbinski does nearly everything better, and he has the better actors.
It is an excellent Horror film, and really frightening.
‘Bloody Birthday’ (1981)
Three young children, born during an eclipse of the moon, decide to go on a murderous spree…
I think that the most disturbing aspect of this film is that - if you examine ‘Society’, in the past few years - the ‘young’ really are starting to ‘take over’, now.
When ‘Bloody Birthday’ was made ('81), there was still - I’d like to believe - a sense of ‘right & wrong’.
Nowadays…?
I think that this is why the film is so disturbing, simply by tying it in with ‘modern day’ behaviour…
LOL. You are sounding like an old man Toscano I’m pretty sure the young nowadays aren’t really much worse than the last generation. If you go back to 1981 you would find people saying the exact same thing you do now and going back yet another 20 years, oh those youngsters with their god-awful rock music
1 Like
Hey! Watch it, young fella!
All the very best!
1 Like
Hi. AvatarDK.
Try reading my views on the ‘Wrinkles’ Bluray. (on the ‘I’ve Just Bought’ section.).
I don’t know…I’m starting to watch - and re-watch - Westerns such as ‘The Wild Bunch’; ‘The Professionals’ (Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster)…they all feature men who are out-living their time…
As for me…so long as I have Companeros such as yourself to speak to, I’ll be okay.!
Thank goodness for the ‘SWDB’.
Yesterday: Sadako 3D 2 (Hanabusa, 2013)
I’m sure it’s of no interest to anyone but I’m going to refrain from saying too much since much of the plot represents a big fat pile of spoilers for the previous movie. Essentially, the events of this movie take place almost six years after the events of Sadako 3D and Akane’s five year-old daughter is suspected by some to be possessed by the evil spirit Sadako once everything starts to go decidedly The Omen around her. Oh noes!
I’m a bit fed up of horror films centred around small children. They’re really not all that creepy (unless they’re already dead like that little f*cker in The Grudge but I digress). Still, I thought this was an improvement on the previous picture, not least because the crappy 3D gimmick had been used with (slightly) more guile here, but also I guess because it could hardly have been worse; Sadako 3D 2 is a better movie than its predecessor, but that’s not the same as saying that it’s a particularly good movie. It’s okay(ish), but no more than that.
You are sounding even more like an old man now
I still have my children living at home so most of my time is spent worrying about them
Not that I haven’t realized the fact that I am very probably at least 50% done with my life and that the last 50% are probably not going to be as much fun as the first. Oh well.