There's no denying that Ringu and Ju-on are two of Japan's most successful horror franchises, spawning several sequels and US remakes, with another Ring sequel (titled Rings) actually scheduled to come out in the US a few weeks after this review. I'm pretty behind on the Japanese sequels, so I'm not sure how good they are at this point, but both franchises looked like they went back to their low-budget roots, whereas this movie actually has some money behind it, despite reportedly starting out as a joke. Honestly, it's hard not to laugh at the concept of these two deadly apparitions duking it out, but the film itself actually plays it straight.

The story follows a university student named "Yuri" and her friend who purchase an old VCR from a local store in hopes of transferring a wedding video onto DVD. After turning it on for the first time the player spits out an old tape, which they naturally assume is the "cursed video" that's been floating around for years (either that or an old porno). Coincidentally, it does turn out to be the cursed tape (damn!) and Yuri's friend is next on Sadako's hit list. Luckily they know a professor that deals in urban legends and enlists his help, where he gladly accepts, but not before burning a copy of the cursed tape onto DVD! Oh well, I'm sure nothing will come of the DVD later, right??



Meanwhile, a young high school student named "Suzuka" just moved next door to the creepy house that's home to the ghosts of Kayako and that pesky cat-impersonating kid, Toshio. Fortunately Suzuka hasn't step foot inside the cursed home just yet, so she's safe (for now) unlike a group of kids that went missing recently. Of course it's not long before Suzuka actually does find her way inside the house for whatever reason, leading her to be cursed and have to ultimately face Kayako's vengeful wrath.

Yuri and Suzuka eventually meet up thanks to a powerful young medium who believes he can pit the two ghosties against each other and possibly cancel each other out. This leads both girls to get cursed by the tape AND the house, forcing Kayako and Sadako to fight for dibs on who gets to kill who first. It's an interesting concept, despite how silly it sounds, but honestly there hasn't been many films that pit ghosts against each other, so it's actually not THAT bad of an idea.



Unfortunately if you're a Grudge/Ju-on fan you'll be a bit disappointed since this plays out more as a Ring movie, with Kayako remaining as an ominous threat in the background that will be dealt with later. We actually don't even see Kayako make her on-screen appearance until the final 25 minutes, which is also close to when she faces off with Sadako. As far as their fighting is concerned, there's only so much the two gals can do to each other, but it's an interesting, albeit short, battle that takes a somewhat unexpected turn in the final moments.

While the writing is pretty terrible, it's to be expected from a movie like this, and honestly I was more disappointed by the film's lack of atmosphere and effective scares than anything. Though it might've just been the fact that we've seen these ghosts do so much already that there's little left that they can do to surprise us. The filmmakers even resorted to the old "cat scare" scene at one point when someone opened a door, resulting in laughter instead of fear (for me anyway). This leads me to my next complaint: the unintentionally funny scenes, which it seemed to have quite a bit of. Maybe they were intentional? Either way, there are some random slaps and a couple funny deaths in the flick, along with a couple other scenes that I found more than amusing. At least I can say that I was never bored by this!

Sure the script is terrible and it's not as scary as it should've been, but if you don't take things too seriously you'll likely find it all pretty amusing and it's just generally nice to see the two gals at it again. Though if you're looking for a great battle between the two spirits you'll be disappointed since it's a bit lackluster and short-lived. Either way, this obviously isn't a good movie, but it's at least an entertaining one, especially if you're a fan of either franchises.