When my brother and his girlfriend watched the movie The Ring which featured the character we now see in our nightmares (courtesy of the movie), ya know, 'Sadako,' they only had the vaguest idea what to expect.
And so they watched the Sadako-starrer... at home. At night. Around 9 or 10 p.m. And so when Sadako, in her trademark all-white sleeping gown, her long, jet-black hair covering her chalk-white face and hiding a murderous, bloodshot eye, started to crawl on towards the TV screen, they both fell from their seats, half-expecting Sadako to come out of the screen to strangle them!
When I first saw it in the cinema, the audience reaction was an experience in itself: the girls behind me were screaming their guts out, ahead of the actual scary part. Anticipating the shock factor probably prevented them from having seizures and heart attacks.
Which reminds me of the time when my brother and I first saw The Exorcist on the big screen. At night. It was a special screening to benefit a beauty pageant contestant. There were no posters, no information at all about the movie. We thought it was an action movie starring Chuck Norris. When Linda Blair's face turned a full 180 degrees, we just knew there was no way we would ever sleep well that night.
Sadako, after all these years, I still remember you!
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