9 Once Terrifying Horror Villains Rendered Lame By Sequels

Sadako quickly became the cover girl for the J-horror craze, with her eerily movement and the long black hair covering her face. The moment she crawls out of a TV became was a real bowel emptier, and with good reason.

Again it’s the case of the less we know, the scarier it is, so when the Japanese Ring 2 proved a scientific explanation for her curse, it completely ruined her mystery. She still provided a couple of jump scares, but the visual was already growing old. The American Ring introduced most audiences to the character (and renamed her Samara) and while it did a decent job translating the story, it still didn’t recapture the raw fear of the original.

The American Ring 2 was a travesty, however, and the slowly creeping ghost girl thing had already been played out. She’s making a return this year in Rings, a long-delayed American sequel, Rings, and the Japanese film Sadako Vs Kayako, where she fights the ghost from The Grudge; which sounds kind of awesome, actually.