Harefooted Halloween: Sadako

What I Liked: Like all the other Ring sequels there are a couple of genuinely eerie moments.  We do get a full blown scene of a TV flipping on by itself, Sadako climbing out of the well, inching her way towards the screen, crawling out of the TV into the real world and attacking a person who’s paralyzed by the fear of what they’re witnessing.  When she pops out into reality she does this slither across the ground too which looks good and weird.  There are also times when we catch glimpses of the devil child either in the background or reflected in blank screens that create some decent atmosphere.

Thankfully this isn’t tedious like I remember some of the other installments being.  They setup enough mystery and goals for the characters to propel the story forward.  It’s definitely not the intense ticking time clock of the first film but the second half picks up the pace with a race to find a victim before Sadako strikes.

What I Didn’t Like: The biggest issue I have is the film doesn’t properly lay out the rules of the curse.  Initially it was extremely simple.  If you watch this specific VHS tape you die seven days later.  There’s a cure but just in case you haven’t seen that original masterwork I’ll leave it there.  In this one there’s no tape, no video online you need to click on or anything.  Sadako attacks anyone who trespasses onto her turf and acts more like a typical slasher villain in that sense.  At the same time her hauntings and assaults seem kinda random.  On top of that the plot features this other little girl with telekinetic powers that’s sort of like Sadako’s protégé and whoever comes in contact with her tends to get caught up in the curse.  Plus the filmmakers retconned some of Sadako’s backstory (I’m pretty sure?) which I won’t even go into.  Bottom line is the whole thing needed more focus.

The passage of time feels off with the way everything flows.  I thought events were occurring in consecutive days but then a character will mention it’s been months or days and that took me aback.  Maybe it’s just me but the storytelling didn’t properly convey the time in between major plot points.

Overall Impressions: Even the keepers of this series could not resist the reboot-quel trend of creating a sequel while also hitting the reset button like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), Halloween (2018), The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, The Exorcist: Believer, etc.  And like most of them this isn’t very successful.  None of Ringu’s successors ever managed to capture the same magic or find a tremendously exciting fresh direction to take the franchise in.  And I’m not sure how much new territory there is to explore by this point.  I mean they already gave us a movie that updates shit to a cursed YouTube video, one that centers more on the science of the curse, one where Sadako grows up and goes to theater school (yea that was a strange one) and a crossover with the Ju-on monster.  This one uses a similar idea to the first sequel where Sadako takes control of another child to help continue the spread of her misery.  It’s unclear if the child already has psychic powers or if Sadako is feeding them to her.  Nonetheless we’ve pretty much been here before.

Director Hideo Nakata makes his big return after helming the first two Japanese entries and the American sequel The Ring Two.  He still knows how to get some nice creepy shit on camera and remains the best at capturing the essence of Sadako with her disposition and how she moves and having her ghostly aura permeate the entire picture.  But unfortunately I get the sense his heart wasn’t in this one.  The script is half baked and the general mood comes across tired.

So while this isn’t terrible it’s not great either.  It could be the strongest sequel but it’s been a while since I’ve seen the others.  If you really dig Sadako and are looking for her to do her thang then sure, it’s worth checking out.  Otherwise don’t worry about it.