8 Surprise Horror Movie Sequels That Caught Fans Unawares
3. Sadako Vs Kayako
To be entirely candid, we are bending our own rules just a touch on this one, as Sadako Vs Kayako was known to be in the works a good six months before it opened in its native Japan in June 2016.
Even so, fans in the west were for the most part taken aback by the appearance of the movie, which presented a Freddy Vs Jason/Alien Vs Predator-esque crossover of the Ring and Grudge franchises.
The main reason why Sadako Vs Kayako came as a surprise was that it literally started life as a joke. A fake trailer was released for April Fool's Day 2015, showing the ghoulish antagonists of the popular J-horror movies doing battle.
However, positive audience reaction to that fake trailer was enough to convince the powers that be to bring the project to life for real.
Outside Japan, Sadako Vs Kayako largely bypassed cinemas, and was for the most part met with a pretty lukewarm response from all but the most devoted J-horror aficionados, whilst largely going unnoticed by the wider western audience more familiar with the US remakes of The Ring and The Grudge.