Sadako vs. Kayako: Strange Promotions for a Japanese Horror Hit
In 2015, Kadakowa Pictures announced that they would be releasing Sadako vs Kayako, a crossover of popular Japanese film franchises Ringu and Ju-on, in June 2016. This crossover announcement drove horror fans crazy with excitement, since both franchises have proven to be popular with horror fans worldwide and have each spawned American remakes of their own (The Ring, which is already considered an American horror classic, and The Grudge). Since the announcement and trailer release, this news has extended past the Japanese border and been shared on popular American websites such as The Nerdist, MoviePilot, and the horror site Bloody-Disgusting.
American film promotion tends to be pretty straightforward. Regular film advertisements - print, video, audio, billboards, etc. – are everywhere. Sometimes a studio might take things up a notch and do a contest, or go the District 9 route and post cryptic flyers around cities. Some, like the recent 10 Cloverfield Lane, may skip the release of any promotional information (or, in this case, even a title) until just a couple of months before the release of the film.
However, we can generally expect a basic ad campaign with almost any upcoming release, and it might even be amped up if the film is expected to be a big hit (like the constant stream of Suicide Squad trailers this spring/summer, leading up to the release of the film). In other cultures, things may or may not traditionally work the same way in film promotion - I have not done enough research on this topic to know for sure. That being said, Japanese production company Hadakowa Pictures definitely stepped up their promotional work for Sadako vs. Kayako BIG TIME. Teasers and full-length trailers were not enough for this film. Sadako, Kayako, and Toshio (the young boy ghost in Ju-on/The Grudge) became poster, erm, demons for theater videos explaining theater etiquette (don't record the film, don't take minors to see the film, etc.). They creepily stood (or, in Kayako and Toshio’s case, twitched) on separate sides of a screen while a male voice narrated something in Japanese (I could not find a version with subtitles or dubbed in English, so I’m not sure what he was saying). Sometimes, they even had popcorn!
They even took over the ceremonial first pitch in a baseball game between the Nippon-Ham Fighters and the Yakult Swallows. In the video below, you can watch the horror icons take the field, with Sadako pitching to Kayako and Toshio running the bases.
While this may not be the way Japanese films are normally promoted, it is interesting to see how significant this film’s promotion has been in the past year. I don’t think this sort of promotional work would work as well with American horror films, since they tend to be more gory and slasher-themed. For Sadako vs. Kayako, however, this promo work was very successful, and even landed an article for the film on The Washington Post’s website.