[Good Luck, Bad Luck — It's All Luck: I feel like the unluckiest character in The Grudge 3 is Kayako's sister. She could've successfully completed the exorcism, but she ended up with a bunch of pig-headed teammates.]
[I Want to Be Superman: Exactly. Watching those pig teammates made me furious. Luckily, every single one of those idiots ends up dead. I seriously don't get it—why do horror movies always have to include characters whose IQ plummets? It's like their brains are full of holes.]
"There's nothing you can do about it. If a horror movie had no idiots in it, the plot wouldn't be able to move forward. Besides, there really are plenty of mentally questionable people in this world." Edward muttered inwardly as he scrolled through the goofy chat group on his phone, chatting with his equally goofy netizens.
He used to wonder why horror movies always had so many stupid characters. But later, Edward realized that the plot truly couldn't progress without them. And after experiencing enough real-life incidents, he discovered that, these days, real-world idiots were far more common—and far more absurd—than the ones in movies.
For example, a tenant once demanded half of the demolition compensation when the building was being torn down simply because she had rented the place for a long time. Or a woman who believed that, when she stayed home alone, she felt "touched" by someone remotely using some kind of high-tech device, and even insisted old men upstairs were doing it to her—only for medical examination to reveal she still had her first time intact.
In truth, the number of real-life fools far surpassed their movie counterparts. The only reason ordinary people don't understand them is because their brain circuits run on an entirely different logic. And that is exactly why moviegoers complain that "the characters are being dumbed down."
[Unlucky Me: You guys are being too one-sided. Isn't there that horror film in this episode—the one that insisted on going head-to-head with The Grudge 3? I watched it. My username now perfectly reflects my mood.]
[Fire Fire Fire Fire FIRE PUNCH!: Oh, I know that one—House of Sayuri. Damn it, I watched it too! I was really curious about who had the guts to challenge Director Edward's horror film. Then I saw it… and I laughed. It was supposed to be a horror movie, but somehow it felt like I was watching a comedy.]
[I'm the Snow Witch, Okay!!: That movie is actually peak filmmaking. You guys just don't understand!!]
Edward's interest was piqued. He already knew that during this period, some film had challenged his The Grudge 3. But he honestly had no idea what style it used. He only knew the title— House of Sayuri. Judging from the chat, though, it seemed this movie was so bad it had a distinct sort of… personality. That made him a little curious.
Besides, this "Snow Witch" was actually the group's self-proclaimed Lich King—just someone who constantly changed their username. Edward was long used to it. But now he was curious to hear what kind of "insight" Snow Witch had this time.
[I'm the Snow Witch, Okay!!: Think about it this way—this Unfortunate Household, in the horror genre it's the most combat-oriented one, and in the action genre it's the most horrifying one. Isn't that an instant win?]
[I'm the Snow Witch, Yeah!: My wife is absolutely right! Everything she says is right!!]
[Hello, I'm the Lead Psychiatrist of the Mental Hospital: When you put it like that, Snow Witch makes perfect sense. @I'm the Snow Witch, Okay!!]
Edward's mouth twitched. These guys are hopeless.
But he was curious now. What kind of god-forsaken film could earn such comments?
"Forget it. I'll just treat it as killing some time." Edward yawned and bought a movie ticket online. One glance at the seating chart made him freeze—
Good lord, he had the entire theatre to himself.
Not because he was rich enough to buy out the theatre, but because… no one else had bought a ticket.
A vein throbbed on Edward's forehead. A creeping sense of foreboding rose inside him, and his internal Trash-Film Radar began blaring at full volume.
Still, unwilling to risk spoilers, Edward resisted the urge to search for reviews and decided to watch it fresh in the cinema. When he arrived, he found—indeed—he was the only one there.
His mouth twitched again. But whatever—having a whole theatre to himself wasn't a bad experience either. He casually released Q and Void. Fortune wasn't here today—still learning to manage Devon Corporation's affairs.
Soon, the movie began.
Edward's expression gradually turned… strange. At first, though, he actually felt fine. The story was a bit cliché, sure, but that cliché was mostly in his own eyes. Under the Pokémon-world setting, it still worked.
The movie opened with a family of seven moving into a big house—classic setup. Edward immediately knew something was wrong with the house. It was standard horror movie formula. In fact, the decline of horror movies in later years was largely due to audiences growing tired of these reused formulas. Once the patterns were fully analyzed, it became very hard to create something new.
Then came flickering ghostly silhouettes, sudden jump scares. Edward yawned and scratched his head. It was all within expectations—but still somewhat entertaining.
Then the female ghost possessed the eldest sister. She started behaving erratically. The old father saw his daughter watching TV late at night, went in to ask her why—and got brained by an evil spirit lurking beside her.
"Next up, the male lead will want to escape, or someone else will, but the mother will refuse, right?" Edward muttered. And sure enough—the plot unfolded exactly as he predicted.
The male lead met a girl at school who had the ability to see spirits. She warned him to leave the house. The auntie next door also told him the house was dangerous and suggested hiring a exorcist master. The male lead proposed it, but the mother refused, insisting that the house was an inheritance from the father and she was determined to stay.
Edward nearly burst out laughing. He understood the necessity—if the family moved out, the ghost would have nothing to do. Unless it was a curse like Kayako's from The Grudge, otherwise a fixed-location spirit couldn't support a plot.
One by one, the family members died:
—The sister went mad.
—The grandfather died while digging something outside.
—The mother still refused to move.
—The male lead's younger brother fell to his death.
—The sister went berserk and attacked the male lead, then regained her senses, said she couldn't take it anymore, and killed herself.
—The mother lost her mind, stepped outside, returned to her room, and hanged herself.
"Efficient pacing, I'll give them that. And the jump-scare style works well enough. But…" Edward scratched his head. It was a decent mid-tier horror film at this point. But the progression was way too fast. Most of the cast barely had screen time before dropping dead. What would they do for the rest of the movie?
Now only the male lead and a senile grandmother remained.
But then things took a bizarre turn.
The grandmother suddenly regained her clarity—and started doing Tai Chi. Not only that, she began teaching the male lead how to cultivate life force and internal energy to fight the evil spirit.
And the male lead actually went along with it.
From here on out, the entire plot twisted into pure absurdity. A strange, deranged kind of surrealism filled every scene. Edward didn't even know how to comment.
Yet… something about it felt oddly familiar.
After a series of nonsensical training montages, the grandmother discovered the evil spirit's identity—Sayuri. The movie's Sayuri had a tragic childhood and a monstrous father. She grew into a very obese woman, killed her father and sister, gouged out her mother's eyes, and eventually came after the male lead and mother.
Then the grandmother suddenly began spiritual martial arts combat, helping the male lead revert Sayuri back into a kind little girl.
Behind her stood the deceased family members of the male lead. With Sayuri's tears, everything ended. The male lead then started living a shameless romantic life with the spirit-seeing girl.
Edward's scalp tingled.
He never imagined a film would go in this direction. No wonder the Lich King found it "unique."
And the final battle—Sayuri opened her mouth and spewed out countless tentacles, as if the film had suddenly crossed over into a Lovecraftian mythos. Completely ridiculous.
Then—
[Director: Kôji Shiraishi]
A familiar name flashed.
Edward froze.
Ah… so that's why.
Kôji Shiraishi—an island-nation director known for horror films. His works were often strange and controversial. But that weird, vaguely Lovecraftian aesthetic was his trademark.
It fit perfectly.
And suddenly, it clicked. Edward finally remembered where he had seen this before—the movie was an adaptation of a manga.
He remembered the manga The Unfortunate Household. Although the movie made many changes.
In the manga, the Kamiki family of seven moved into a cursed old mansion. Beneath the low price lurked decades of blood-soaked resentment. On the very first night, the eldest son, Zekio, saw strange phenomena—
a white-skirted figure at the end of the hallway, blood-like fluid oozing from the walls.
His classmate Suda, who had spirit vision, warned him:
"The foundation of that house is built on living hatred."
Sayuri began slaughtering the family one by one:
—The grandfather Zōzō self-immolated after discovering rusted chains.
—The mother Masako hallucinated and killed her husband, then hanged herself.
—The youngest daughter was dragged into the wall by invisible hands.
In just one month, five family members died horrific deaths, leaving only Zekio and his senile grandmother Harue.
In the manga, Harue regained her sanity and revealed the truth:
The Kamiki family had once imprisoned a girl named Sayuri, who was abused, raped, and murdered by their ancestors. Her limbs were bound with iron chains, and she was buried alive under the foundation.
That was why she relentlessly targeted the Kamiki bloodline.
The movie version changed Sayuri's backstory completely.
The manga grandmother also trained Zekio using real martial arts and brutal conditioning, eating peppers to resist hallucinations, enduring physical torture.
On the final night, they dug up Sayuri's remains. Her corpse still wore a collar etched with the Kamiki name. The evil spirit controlled Suda to attack Zekio. Harue used her body as a shield, sacrificing herself and sealing the grudge with spiritual force.
But as Zekio thought it was over, the mirror reflected Sayuri's sinister smile.
The manga ended open-ended:
—Black fingerprints appeared on Zekio's neck.
—Harue's diary ended with:
"Sin does not disappear. It merely takes a new body."
Edward had found the manga bizarre yet memorable—especially the grandmother's dramatic transformation. And he had noticed something else—
People from that island nation were obsessed with bloodlines.
Sinners beget sinners.
The concept of karmic retribution through ancestry appeared frequently.
It wasn't strange—East Asian cultures, influenced heavily by Confucianism, often carried concepts like collective guilt and inherited karma.
Edward had never continued reading—it was short compared to the "big three" long-running manga.
Now, watching the movie, he shook his head.
"So that's what it was. But this film…"
He wasn't sure the movie adaptation succeeded. Turning a family bloodline curse into a simple haunted-house trope made the story too generic. In horror cinema, a house curse was the most cliché structure possible.
With mild curiosity, Edward searched it up—and found that the original manga did exist in this world too.
He laughed helplessly.
But he definitely wouldn't watch this film a second time.
"Good movies are hard to find these days," he sighed and shook his head.
(End of Chapter)