No Franchise Fatigue Podcast: Ring in the New Year! (January 2021) [Ring Franchise Part III]

Hear Matt and Sean defend a film with a 7% Rotten Tomatoes score! Cower beneath the exploding hair of a spin-off! And then listen to them... wait, is that a magic well in Matt's backyard? Matt and Sean spent New Years watching cursed video tapes, and now, almost seven days later, it's time to discuss the final four Ring movies (for now) in what Matt lovingly calls “The Sadako Phase." Let's 'Ring in the New Year' with our third episode capping off the well of Sadako films. 

Sadako (2019)

Director: Hideo Nakata

Notable Cast: Elaiza Ikeda, Himeka Himejima, Hiroya Shimizu, Ren Kiriyama, Rie Tomosaka, Takashi Tsukamoto

In terms of franchises, the Ring franchise still might now be the wildest – despite intensive efforts to continually reboot it in some wild ways. It’s a weird one, often perplexing at times, but not necessarily the strangest one I’ve seen. After a relatively successful reboot in Japan of the series with Sadako 3D and Sadako 3D 2, the franchise took a wild swing with the entertaining Sadako Vs Kayako which serves as more of a “fan service” film rather than a true part of the original or the reboot franchise. It’s not that surprising then that the latest film, under the rather confusing title Sadako, also serves as something of a soft reboot. It’s a film that attempts to go back to the original’s tone and feeling with a few new themes thrown in as it strips back the wild aspects of the newer films for something a bit more traditional. This leaves Sadako feeling a bit anemic in its narrative, repetitive and unmemorable as it runs through many of the tropes, but disregards many of the other elements that made Sadako and her films horror classics.

The big reason that fans should be intrigued about Sadako is that it marks a return to the franchise by its directorial creator, Hideo Nakata since the disastrous The Ring Two. Dabbling on and off in horror for the last 20+ years, his track record can be hit or miss, but his return does perk a lot of interest. Perhaps it shouldn’t be so shocking that the film is more akin to the original run of Japanese films (including his own Ring and Ring 2 entries) in tone. It’s a shift that certainly sounds tempting on paper – being a loose reboot that only hints at being part of the same universe as previous films. Still, the execution of its ideas seems thin at best and leaves so much to be desired.

The Ring Collection (2019)

It was only a few years ago I wrote a piece at Blood Brothers about the relevancy of the Ring franchise for horror. At the time there was two new films due for release, the wildly entertaining Sadako vs Kayoko and the less-said-the-better American sequel, Rings. Now, it’s time to take a look at the franchise once again, not just because we are going another new film – Sadako, which sees the return of Hideo Nakata to the director’s chair, but because Arrow Video has done everyone a huge favor. They just released a phenomenal box set with new HD restorations of the first four Japanese and any fans of the films, cinema collectors, or even newbies will want to pick up this set and dig into its gold mine of contents.

It should be noted that the American release of this set is the same one as the UK one from last year, although the titles have been slightly changed to reflect the silly US titling which is Ringu and not Ring. I will continue to use the term Ring through this piece because, quite frankly, the name Ringu is stupid. Fortunately, my opinion on that seems to be backed fairly heavily on the special features of this set so at least there’s that.

Rings (2017)

Director: F. Javier Gutierrez

Notable Cast: Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki, Vincent D’Onofrio, Aimee Teegarden, Bonnie Morgan

It’s no secret that here at Blood Brothers we love The Ring franchises. I even went so far as to write an article about why this series is still relevant late last year before the release of Rings and the Japanese crossover Sadako Vs. Kayoko. Now that Rings has finally gotten a US release, no thanks to the numerous delays and postponements it received, it was an easy decision to say that it was going to get a full review here on the site. Unfortunately, I’m not sure Rings deserves a full review. This third entry into the American Ring series suffers from the ultimate sin: having no potential. In particular, the film feels like it is meant to be a sequel that is not only meant to reboot the franchise, but one that is perfectly content with just rehashing EVERYTHING we’ve seen before. It thinks it’s clever with some of its modern spins and new mysteries to solve, but it’s all been done before in this franchise in one way or another and for fans that have seen all of them, it’s even less inspired.

Sadako vs Kayako (2016)

Director: Koji Shiraishi

Notable Cast: Mizuki Yamamoto, Tina Tamashiro, Aimi Satsukawa, Masahiro Komoto, Masanobu Ando, Mai Kikuchi, Misato Tanaka

Crossover films are very divisive by nature, and cause a ruckus among the representatives of each side of the franchises coming together. I actually don't get excited for these joining of properties, as I don't find myself in the fandom of the subjects usually, but in this case, I love both of these Japanese cinema icons and their respective franchises, Ringu and Ju-On.

Sadako vs Kayako, as it were, is a Japanese horror fan's wildest dream come true. So many crappy doodles on papers all across the world of The Ring and The Grudge (yeah sorry about that) standing next to each other, has become a thing of reality, and it is as awesome as it is a let down. Get excited, adjusts your expectations accordingly (probably lowering them would help), and get ready for one of the most iconic horror showdowns ever conceived.

Into the Well: Is the Ringu Franchise Still Relevant?

When The Ring came out back in 2002, I was hooked. I was in high school, I was a horror movie fanatic, and I couldn’t get enough of atmosphere and concept. It was scary, smart, and most of all – timely. It combined familiar ghost story elements with the unfamiliar tones of a blooming J Horror trend and I loved it. I quickly sought out the original Ringu at the video stores (requiescat in pace) and I have been a fan since. Granted, it’s been years since I revisited the franchise and its various spin offs, reboots, and forgotten sequels, but with the recent announcement of a third American film Rings, a new Japanese film in Sadako Vs Kayoko, and some requests from our readers for more J Horror material, I decided it was time to go back and look at one of the strangest and overly complicated franchises that horror has ever seen and examine why this series is still relevant today despite some odd turns in quality.