Man, how I love the over-the-top bombastic of Japanese pop culture. I mean, we do stunts to promote movies in the States, but this is perfection.
To promote the upcoming crossover sequel Sadako vs Kayako, which pits the ghosts from The Ring (Ringu in the original version) and The Grudge (Ju-On), the J-horror icons had a, um, grudge-match at a recent baseball game between the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and Yakult Swallows.
In the clip below, Sadako enters the ring (I just did it again, didn't I?) and warms up to pitch against Kayako and the ghost child Toshio. It turns out that Kayako ain't a half bad player because she hits a homer. But, to be fair, Sadako did have her evil eyes covered as she pitched from the mound.
"This is my revenge. Paranormal prank." That's always a fun way to start off a video but these ViralBrothers from Prague sure know how to not only execute a prank and also to get tons of hits on their YouTube. To exact revenge on Erik Meldik for dosing him with sleeping pills and leaving him in the Old Town Square, ÄŒenÄ›k Stýblo (thank goodness for the cut and paste option) scares the piss out of Erik thanks to the creepy girl from "The Ring." Poor Erik. He doesn't look too happy. Tough.
Check out the video and let us know if your heart could withstand such an attack.
One of the funnier skits on Saturday’s new Saturday Night Live proved that a terrifying ghost can be pretty hilarious. It was great to see Kristin Wiig back on the set and even cooler to see her play a Korean water ghost ... a Mul-Gwishin!
We’d love to see the Disney Channel actually have a show called "Aw Nuts! Mom’s a Ghost" but for now, we’ll just have this clip to keep our spirits up. When Hayley and Max’s mom (Wiig) heads to South Korea for a business trip, she has an affair with a business man. He fears she may reveal the affair so he drowns her and she comes back as a ghost reminiscent of The Ring and The Grudge.
Obviously, hilarity ensues and you can check it out here.
Whether it features ghosts, monsters or aliens, no movie is too sacred from fresh critique when at-home critic Denise Purvis dons the guise of the Rental Reviewer and explores the best (and worst) of paranormal pop culture.
I just realized this movie came out in October 2002, nearly eight years ago. To this day, it’s one of the scariest horror films that I've ever seen. From Gore Verbinski (director of all of the Pirates of the Caribbean films) and starring Naomi Watts, it’s not your typical B-style horror flick. In fact, The Ring is a remake of a 1998 Japanese horror movie, introduced the J-horror genre to the States and spawned a sequel.
The plot: A mysterious, cursed videotape (VHS because not even the devil uses Beta) of creepy, seemingly-unrelated images surfaces and kills anyone that watches it within seven days of viewing the tape. Just in case they weren’t sure they were going to die, they get an ominous phone call moments after watching the haunting grainy tape saying, “You will die in seven days.” Apparently the Grim Reaper is pretty meticulous about delivering its message.
Anyhow, the footage on the tape of the woman brushing her hair, the tree, the well - and pretty much all of it - gives me hardcore goosebumps. So does the twisted corpse of teen Katie (Amber Tamblyn) who watches the film and croaks, who happens to be the niece of main character Rachel Keller (played by Watts). Keller is a journalist who decides to investigate the tape that caused her niece’s death, which ultimately puts both her and her son’s life in danger after she finds out about a dark, evil girl named Samara who caused all of the weird happenings.
The scene: The one scene that still makes me shaky to think about is when Rachel’s ex-husband, Noah, goes over some film prints in his apartment when the television mysteriously comes on with static - in the same exact way that Rachel’s niece’s death occurred. He attempts to turn off the television which promptly turns back on. Creepy Spoiler Alert: A gross, soggy undead Samara crawls out of the television. AHHHH!!! It freaks me out even now to type about it.
The take: This is without a doubt the most frightening and well made horror film I have seen in my entire lifetime. I remember when I originally watched it at the movie theater when I was still attending UGA and my demonic roommate unplugged all of the cable wires from the TVs so they would only show static. I, to this day, cannot stand static on a television because of this movie.
The extras: 10 minutes of deleted scenes & trailers for some other movies.
The extra extra: Since the DVD is thin on extras, we decided to include the video from The Ring's videotape embedded below.
