Originally published: September 7, 2007 @ 3:09pm MST (Arizona)

We’ll stay together forever. - Spoken in Reincarnation (2006)

Reincarnation is a bit of a trouble subject for some people. Some church-goers believe that once you pass on, that’s it, you move on to your eternal reward (or punishment), with no second chances. Others believe that when you die, you get reborn, either as another type of creature or another person. My personal beliefs are that we reincarnate. I don’t know if I’ve had any past lives, but I know that my uncle believes he has. He told me that his first word was "Fire", not "Mama" or "Daddy" and that some of his earliest memories are dreaming of being in an airplane cockpit, looking out the window and seeing a flaming wing with an insignia on it… the Japanese flag. When he was stationed in Japan (he’s ex-Army), he was engaged to a Japanese girl whose father had some important contacts and offered to find out who he was, but my uncle turned him down. From what I understand, he believes he’s always been a warrior from one life to another.

This movie was one of the first I saw on the shelf when they started selling the HorrorFest movies at Wal-Mart and the first thing that drew me to it was the fact that Takashi Shimizu directed it. I believe I expressed my admiration for Shimizu’s work in my reviews of the Ju-On/Grudge (my review / other review) movies, as well as in the segment he directed for Dark Tales of Japan (my review), but I’ll say it again: he is one of my favorite directors, anywhere. As a result, this was the first of the HorrorFest movies that I paid for myself.

The film starts off showing a group of three girls playing around with a program on a cell phone that would tell what a person’s past life would be (one girl’s was a penguin). The third girl tries the program and she sees an older man’s reflection in the phone, but when she turns, she sees nothing. Next, we meet an office worker who’s heading into a crowded elevator. As everyone gets out on a different floor he continues up, but bumps into someone very tall standing behind him that wasn’t there before. The doors open, but he doesn’t step out… instead, as we see inside the elevator car, he seems to be in a trance as the doors close again. Our last excursion takes us to a man washing his face in a public washroom where he sees his facial features shift slightly in a mirror. Later on, as he’s driving his truck down the road, he’s fiddling the radio and doesn’t see a man in an old bellhop’s outfit standing in the road. Unable to stop in time, he hits the man. Getting out to see, he kneels down and looks under the car, only to be confronted with the face that he saw in the mirror earlier. Turning, he sees more faces looking on him from the darkness. Unable to start the truck again, he hides in the sleeper section of his truck. This doesn’t help, however, as the last we see of him, several ghostly faces are gazing on him from the forward cab.

One last scene shows a man working on a computer. His answering machine picks up a call: his agent asking how his script is coming along and telling him that an audition has been set up. As he works, we see a red ball bouncing behind him. The camera follows the ball as it bounces up a hallway, bouncing off the door to a room… a very loosely closed door, as it opens to reveal a ruin. An old, dusty doll is laying in the closet of the room and as we watch, its eye deteriorates in front of us… we leave it with the words quoted above in a hoarse voice… "We’ll stay together forever."

From here, we move to the audition. A girl, Yuka, is telling how she would be a good murder victim in a film due to her being a murder victim in a past life. As she’s speaking, though, the director keeps looking in the direction of another young actress, Nagisa. After the audition is over (with director and aspiring actresses having thanked each other), Nagisa heads to the subway where she sees a little girl with a strange doll looking at her on the train. At the stop she sees the girl again, stepping off the train, then seeming to fall on the tracks. Nagisa tries to get them to stop the train, but sees the girl glaring up at her with the doll from below the platform as the train takes off.

Later, Nagisa gets a call about having been accepted for the movie. After she gets the script and reads a little of it, she dreams of a strange, abandoned hotel. Arriving the studio, she finds out that the movie is going to be about a murder spree at an old hotel that happened in the 70s and that her character is that of a little girl that died there. She sees a model of the hotel and it matches the one in her dream… the picture of her character matches the little girl that she saw on the subway.

I was very impressed with this movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly and thought it was one of the better Japanese ghost movies I’ve seen in a while. The acting was really well-done. Nagisa, our main star, was played by Yûka. This girl was very pretty and boy could she scream! Yayoi Kinoshita was played by our second single-named star, Karina. She didn’t have to do quite so much screaming, but her part was vital in the long run of the story. Kippei Shiina plays the director of the movie within the movie, Ikuo Matsumura. I’m not too familiar with directing, personally, but he seems to play the part well. Miki Sanjo plays the only survivor of the hotel massacre and she brings a lot of feeling to the role. She also played in Toho’s 1954 sci-fi film Tomei Ningen (translated as The Invisible Man). Mao Sasaki plays Chisato Omori, the little girl, and she definitely gives a good sense of creepiness. She also played in The Great Yokai War, which I highly recommend (and will cover someday soon). Finally, in a smaller part than what we usually see of her, Takako Fuji plays a maid, one of the many victims of the madman. She is best known, of course, as Kayako in the Grudge and Ju-On series of movies.

Another excellent movie, another 5 out of 5 rating. I stand by my earlier statement… if you can only watch one of the HorrorFest movies, I still suggest Gravedancers (my review). However, if you can see two, then by all means, I highly recommend Reincarnation. If you want a good scare, excellent spooky atmosphere, and a nice mystery or two, you’ll like this one. As always, until next time, this is Red Hawk signing out!

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Originally posted: October 2, 2006 @ 6:59am PST

Day 2 of Octoberfest here at Happy Horror and we’ve got the sequel to the original Japanese Ju-On (previously reviewed), titled, not surprisingly, Ju-On 2 (which you can get from a source besides mine, now). We get a larger dose of Toshio creepiness (that kid pops up everywhere!) as well as the usual croaking Kayako and a surprising absense of the patriarch of the ghostly group.

The movie opens, after the traditional run-down of the curse, on a young couple (Kyoko and Masashi) seen down a long, freeway-style road talking, when the radio starts acting up. She seems a little shaken up and upset, as she’s come from a shoot on a show about ghosts, wondering who called her the "horror queen". Her fiance soothes her by telling her his mother’s checking out all of her movies, proud that her son’s soon-to-be-wife is in movies and TV. As they drive along the subject turns to her being pregnant. Then the car hits something. He finds a black cat laying on the road and starts hurrying back, while she sees a pair of pale legs run out towards the cat. As they drive off, the cat disappears from where it was laying.

They continue on their way and Kyoko starts panicking as she looks down below the steering wheel. Masashi looks and sees a little boy staring up at him, gripping the wheel so he can’t turn it. They crash off the road, knocking Masashi unconscious. Kyoko opens her eyes and sees handprints appear up the windshield, as if someone were walking up it. She sees Masashi and then realizes that the car accident has caused her to miscarriage.

Later, in the hospital, as Kyoko goes to see their families in the room outside Masashi’s ICU, Masashi’s father apologizes to her mother for his son bringing the trouble upon Kyoko. As the families leave she looks in on him and we see the reflection of the little boy pop up behind his bed. As she opens the door to rush inside, Toshio runs up to her and places his hand on her stomach for a split second, then disappears as Kyoko passes out. A new cycle of events has started…

The first time I found out about this movie was when I got my first catalog from Video Daikaiju. Along with the catalog, there were also several actual Japanese advertisements for different movies, full color pamphlets and one of them was for Ju-On 2. When I first saw it, I thought it was for the first one, of course, until I saw the big 2 below the words. Ju-On 2 wasn’t in my first order, of course, but I DID order it from there and have never regretted the purchase.

On the acting front we again get some good, solid performances from the cast. Noriko Sakai plays Kyoko and went on from here to play in Premonition, another excellent movie that I hope to feature on the site in the near future. Ayumu Saito plays Masashi, and while he isn’t given much to do (his portrayal is restricted to a wheelchair once he wakes from his coma), he does well with what he’s given. Kei Horie, who played Gao Yellow in the Gaorangers Sentai series and movies, plays Noritaka. Shingo Katsurayama, from Kamen Rider Kuuga and Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (short title) plays Keisuke. For the characters returning from the first movie, we of course have Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) and Kayako (Takako Fuji) as our antagonists, playing some pretty neat tricks on those they’re about to do away with. Also returning from Ju-On is Yui Ichikawa, who plays Chiharu. In the first movie, Chiharu was a friend of Izumi, a girl who’d gone into the house and warned her not to. Also on the horror front, Yui went on to play in the movie version of Siren.

Storyline-wise, the movie was excellent. We get several different ways for people to die, thanks to Kayako (including one that made it into the director’s cut of The Grudge). There is one discrepancy between the first and second Ju-Ons, though. In the first one, at least from the ending, it seemed like Kayako was almost trying to warn or protect those who were affected by the curse, as if she were trying to get them away from her husband who was repeating the treatment he gave her on whoever was affected. In this movie though, with the lack of her husband’s spirit, she’s in the driver’s seat herself. Maybe the upcoming Ju-On 3 will provide a few more answers.

All in all, a sequel that’s as good as the original and a movie that I don’t hesitate to give a 5 out of 5. If you can acquire this movie (either through Video Daikaiju, through other export services or if an American company makes it available when The Grudge 2 comes out), I highly recommend it. That’s all for this Octoberfest entry. Tune in tomorrow, where we take our final look, at least for now, at the ghostly Saeki family. Until then, this is Red Hawk signing off!

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Originally published: October 1, 2006 @ 5:56am PST

Please stop tormenting me.

- Mrs. Sachie from Ju-On

First off, I would like to apologize to the Happy Horror faithful. I didn’t mean to take such a long hiatus and had several plans to come back earlier, but they didn’t quite work out. With Octoberfest, though, I hope to make up for the lack of updates. So please, stay tuned to the site! Hopefully we’ll have something you like!

After seeing the American version of this movie, called The Grudge, I was pleasantly surprised to find Ju-On available at the local video store to rent. My neighbor at the time also enjoyed the American movie so I decided to rent it to not only see it myself, but also show it to her. So the question is: how does it compare to the American version?

The movie opens with a rundown of the curse, explaining how it works and what starts it. Then, we go to a social welfare office where our main character, Rika, works as a volunteer. Her boss approaches her about checking on one of their patients since the patient’s son is unavailable at the time. Rika gets fairly well forced into checking on her, but goes anyway. As she rounds the corner to the house, she stops as if she might sense something wrong about it, but then continues to the door despite her apparent intuition. She knocks, but there’s no answer so she tries the door and it opens. As she looks inside she sees… an incredible mess. Papers and garbage are strewn all over the floor and up the stairs. Entering, she hears a scraping sound coming from Mrs. Sachie’s room. As Rika opens the sliding door she finds Sachie on the floor, her hands clawing and scraping at the door.

Outside, Rika washes Mrs. Sachie’s bedding and tries to have a conversation with her, but all Sachie does is stare into space. After washing Sachie and putting her back to bed, Rika does some cleaning. In the midst of this, she hears a scratching noise in an upstairs room. Going into the room, she finds a closet with duct tape covering it. After some slight hesitation she opens it to find… a black cat laying on some bedding. Looking relieved at first, she looks a little more to the right and finds a little boy who appears to be in a catatonic state. She runs downstairs to ask Sachie who he is, but Sachie doesn’t say a word. Finally, after calling about him, she asks him his name and he says, "Toshio." As she’s about to tell him her name they hear a noise from Sachie’s room so she rushes over to find her sitting and mumbling to herself, saying that she told her sister-in-law over and over. Finally she says, "Please stop tormenting me." She calms down for a split second, then a look of terror comes over her face. Rika looks to her left and sees a shadowy form floating over Sachie… a form that turns its face towards her and opens its bloodshot eyes as a horrible clicking, croaking sound comes. Rika passes out as the screen fades to black…

This version of Ju-On was made in 2003, and follows two TV movies that give a bit more in-depth look at the background of the resident ghosts, who are Toshio, Kayako and Takeo. Reprising the roles of the resident ghosts are Takako Fuji as Kayako and Takashi Matsuyama as Takeo, with newcomer Yuya Ozeki taking on the role of Toshio. Playing Rika is Megumi Okina. Playing Sachie, the disturbed old lady, was Chikako Isomura, who did a REALLY good job in her role. Daisuke Honda plays Detective Igarashi, who went on to play in one of the most recent entries in the Tomie series. Finally, one of my personal favorite actors in this movie was Isao Yatsu, who shows up near the end as an old man who plays "peekaboo" with an invisible Toshio. Mr. Yatsu seems to have made a name for himself in his short career in acting by playing mostly bit parts in scary movies: his first role was in 1999’s Ringu 2 as a taxi driver; in 2002, he played the apartment manager in the Japanese Dark Water; and in 2004, he played a patient in the hospital from the movie Infection.

Story-wise the movie’s great. Some of the scenes were shot differently from the American version later, even in similar scenes. For example, when Sachie’s son finds his wife lying in bed and is searching for a phone to call a hospital, rather than just going to the scene where Toshio appears beside the bed growling, he actually wanders by in the background for a couple of shots (similar to his appearance on the staircase in The Grudge). There are also some scenes that didn’t make it into the American version such as a whole sequence with Izumi, the daughter of a former investigator who retired after the Sakae case.

Of course, one thing that was diluted from the original was the fact that you didn’t have to enter the house to become cursed. Originally, it was anyone who entered or anyone they touched, would carry the curse and become susceptible to the wrath of the ghosts. This led to others, unrelated to the house, encountering the ghosts. Also, in this movie, we see that not just the three ghosts come after people, but sometimes those who were killed by them, as well.

So with all of this behind the movie, I’ll be giving it a 5 out of 5. It’s a lot of good, clean, mysterious, croaking ghostly fun. Be warned, though, that many people have considered the series one of the scariest ever. Stay tuned tomorrow, when we unveil part two of Octoberfest and continue our tribute to croaking phantasms. Until next time, this is Red Hawk signing out!

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Originally posted: June 25, 2006 @ 9:44am PST

To celebrate Ring Week, I decided to postpone my usual Monster-of-the-Week column so that I could focus on the theme of the week, the Ring movies. Over the course of the week, I’ve seen some of the movies solely so that I can remain fresh for my reviews and I hope that I can do the three ladies justice in my article here. Unfortunately, time permits me to only cover their first appearances, but I’ll do my best. So, away we go!

Sadako: The original and, some say, the best of the Ring ladies. She’s the one that started it all, the one on which all Japanese horror seems to be tested against, which is amazing considering the small amount of screen time she actually has in Ringu. Her first appearance in the movie was at the psychic demonstration that her mother gave. We see a glimpse of her powers first, though, as the reporter who called her mother a fraud quickly died with a silent yell on his face. Her mother saw what happened and screamed, "Sadako! Was it you?" Then, Sadako steps out from the curtains and runs to Reiko, who’s seeing the flashback as if she were there. Sadako grabs Reiko’s arm (we see her fingernails ripped out even here) and Reiko jumps to the present, with smudgemarks on her arm where Sadako had grabbed her.

Pictured: Sadako from Ringu on DVD

Later, Reiko is in the well, trying to find Sadako in the water. When she finds her, we see another flashback scene, this time of Sadako’s father coming up behind her and hitting her in the head, then throwing her into the well. Reiko believes that their finding her body will beat the curse, a notion that seems to be reinforced by the fact that she still lives past the deadline.

However, this leads to the last Ringu appearance… the apartment attack. Ryuji, Reiko’s ex-husband, is working in his office when his TV flicks on to display a shot of the well. At the same time, Reiko tries to call him. Ryuji sees Sadako emerge from the well and approach the TV screen very slowly. When she reaches the screen, she climbs through (giving us another view of her nailless fingers) and slowly, jerkily, raises up to come after Ryuji. In the end, we get to see the infamous eye, as was shown in my Ringu review.

Pictured: Samara from The Ring on DVD

Samara: We definitely get to see more of Samara than we do of Sadako in her first appearance. Our first glimpse is during Rachel’s dreaming sequence, where she goes upstairs to Aidan’s room and sees a figure sitting in a chair, its back to the door. As Rachel approaches, the camera pans over to the figure’s shoulder… when Rachel’s right next to the figure, a rotted arm reaches up to grabs her arm, waking her out of her dream and leaving burnmarks where she was grabbed. Later, we get to see Samara in video from the psychiatric hospital, where she reveals that she wants to hurt people (though it doesn’t quite sound that way the first time we see it), and that she’s sorry. When Rachel’s in the well (not from her own doing, unlike Reiko), she finds Samara. Rachel sees how her mother had tried to suffocate Samara and drop her down the well. Finally, we see Samara strike at Noah in the end sequence, showing how vengeful she really can be.

Pictured: Tabitha from Scary Movie 3 on DVD

Tabitha: Tabitha is the Scary Movie universe’s analogy to Sadako and Samara, so as such, she has pretty much the same powers as the two. We don’t see her grab anyone’s arm during the movie, so we don’t know what her touch would do. When she first appears (outside of the opening few minutes where we get a glimpse of her), she emerges from the well then approaches Brenda through the screen. Brenda actually does a good job of fighting back at her, but Tabitha gets the upper hand and Cindy finds her friend dead. When next we actually see her (we hear her voice twice on the phone before the end), it’s at the farmhouse near the close of the film, appearing behind Cindy. She does a good job of staying exactly behind her, until Cindy catches her and she grabs Cody. Cindy and George appeal to Tabitha, telling her that maybe all she needs is a mother and a father who would love her. Tabitha morphs to a beautiful little girl who tells them, "Thank you, your love has broken the curse. I’ll never have to kill again." When Cindy asks "Really?" Tabitha morphs back into the rotted version and pulls out a knife, saying, "Nah, I’m just screwin’ with ya!" At that moment, the President pops in and hits Tabitha from behind with the door, knocking her back in the well. Then he tells the two, "I just want to tell you good luck. We’re all counting on you."

In the alternate ending of the movie we see a different power manifest in a more direct parody of The Matrix than just Shaniqua earlier in the movie. In this version, Tabitha takes the place of the multiple Agent Smiths from the second Matrix movie, coming out of abandoned lots, copy shops ("Copies Made While You Wait" reads the sign), and a strip club ("Girls Girls Girls"). As they approach Cindy, a phone rings and all the copies feel for their phone, but only one pulls it out and answers with "Seven days." They then attack Cindy, who manages to beat all of them in a fight.

This concludes my look at the Ring Girls. Feel free to message me if you want me to expand on the girls’ second or later appearances and I’ll get to your request as soon as I can! Now, as for Ring Week, I have one more article planned out for later tonight, and I hope you enjoy it!  Until then, this is Red Hawk, signing out!

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