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Okiku’s Ghost: The True Scary Story That Inspired ‘The Ring’
Some horror movies are directly based on true stories, while countless others are inspired by reality but bend the truth to make those stories into something new. The character of Leatherface, for example, was of course inspired by real-life serial killer Ed Gein, who indeed did wear the skin of his victims – but he never actually picked up a chainsaw and massacred a group of youths.
The Ring‘s Sadako/Samara? Believe it or not, she too has a basis in reality.
The story of Sadako/Samara, first introduced in the Kôji Suzuki-penned novel that became 1998’s Ringu and then 2002’s The Ring, involves three key ingredients: a girl, a well, and a cursed videotape. To make a long story short, Sadako/Samara was a young girl with supernatural gifts who was thrown down a well, and she returns to our physical reality through the cursed tape – when someone watches it, her ghost crawls out of her watery grave and takes her vengeance out on that person, seven days later. The story slightly changes from film-to-film, but that’s the gist.
So just how real is Sadako/Samara? We travel to Himeji Castle to find out.
Located in Western Japan, Himeji Castle stands high atop a mountain, and it was built somewhere between 1333 and 1346 as a home for the lord of Himeji. The castle, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Japan, is said to be incredibly lucky, almost supernaturally so, but it has a pretty creepy story attached to it. The story of Okiku, who died in a well outside the castle.
Okiku, who worked in a dungeon beneath the castle, was the servant to a samurai named Tessan Aoyama, and Aoyama took a particular liking to her. In fact, he fell madly in love with her, telling her that he was going to leave his wife and be with her. But Okiku wasn’t on board with this plan, which led to her apparent murder at the hands of the brutal samurai.
One of Okiku’s primary duties was to look after ten highly valuable golden plates that were owned by Aoyama, and one day, the samurai decided to hide one of them. He told Okiku that if she didn’t agree to be with him, he would blame her for stealing the plate, which would lead to her torture and execution. In one version of the story, Okiku ended her own life by throwing herself down the castle’s well, believing herself to be in a no-win situation with no other way out. In the other version, Aoyama threw her down the well after she refused to be with him.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there.
In the wake of Okiku’s death, she was said to crawl out of the well and appear to Aoyama on a nightly basis. Aoyama was apparently driven insane by the vengeful ghost’s incessant screams in the night; she was regularly heard counting the plates in the dungeon… throwing a violent fit whenever she realized, as she always did, that the tenth plate was still missing.
Drawings of Okiku depict her as looking very similar to Sadako/Samara, with flowing black hair and a long white dress. This is the general depiction of a person who has died under unnatural circumstances in Japan: these ghosts are referred to as Yūrei, translating to either “faint soul” or “dim spirit.” These tragic women are buried in white dresses, with their hair let down.
The well, locally known as “Okiku’s Well,” can still be found outside Himeji Castle, but it now has wrought iron bars covering it. An effort to keep Okiku locked inside, perhaps?
Only one episode remains in Season 3 of “Chucky,” and what a bloody road it’s been so far, especially for actor Devon Sawa. The actor has now officially died twice on screen this season, pulling double duty as President James Collins and body double Randall Jenkins.
If you thought Chucky’s ruthless eye-gouging of the President was bloody, this week’s Episode 7 traps Randall Jenkins in an elevator that feels straight out of an iconic horror classic.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with series creator Don Mancini and actor Devon Sawa about that ultra-bloody death sequence and how the actor inspires Mancini’s writing on the series.
Mancini explains, “Devon’s a bit of a muse. Idle Hands and Final Destination is where my Devon Sawa fandom started, like a lot of people; although yours may have started with Casper. I was a bit too old for that. But it’s really just about how I love writing for actors that I respect and then know. So, it’s like having worked with Devon for three years now, I’m just always thinking, ‘Oh, what would be a fun thing to throw his way that would be unexpected and different that he hasn’t done?’ That’s really what motivates me.”
For Sawa, “Chucky“ is an actor’s dream in that the series gives him not one but multiple roles to sink his teeth into, often within the same season. But the actor is also a huge horror fan, and Season 3: Part 2 gives him the opportunity to pay homage to a classic: Kubrick’s The Shining.
CHUCKY — “There Will Be Blood” Episode 307 — Pictured in this screengrab: (l-r) Devon Sawa as President James Collins, K.C. Collins as Coop — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Collectively, it’s just amazing to put on the different outfits, to do the hair differently, to get different types of dialogue,“ Sawa says of working on the series. “The elevator scene, it’s like being a kid again. I was up to my eyeballs in blood, and it felt very Kubrick. Everybody there was having such a good time, and we were all doing this cool horror stuff, and it felt amazing. It really was a good day.”
Sawa elaborates on being submerged in so much blood, “It was uncomfortable, cold, and sticky, and it got in my ears and my nose. But it was well worth it. I didn’t complain once. I was like, ‘This is why I do what I do, to do scenes like this,‘ the scenes that I grew up watching on VHS cassette, and now we’re doing it in HD, and it’s all so cool.“
It’s always the characters and the actors behind them that matter most to Mancini, even when he delights in coming up with inventive kills and incorporating horror references. And he’s killed Devon Sawa’s characters often. Could future seasons top the record of on-screen Sawa deaths?
“Well, I guess we did it twice in season one and once in season two,“ Mancini counts. “So yeah, I guess I would have to up the ante next season. I’ll really be juggling a lot of falls. But I think it’s hopefully as much about quality as quantity. I want to give him a good role that he’s going to enjoy sinking his teeth into as an actor. It’s not just about the deaths.”
Sawa adds, “Don’s never really talked about how many times could we kill you. He’s always talking about, ‘How can I make this death better,’ and that’s what I think excites him is how he can top each death. The electricity, to me blowing up to, obviously in this season, the eyes and with the elevator, which was my favorite one to shoot. So if it goes on, we’ll see if he could top the deaths.”
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
The actor has played a handful of distinctly different characters since the series launch, each one meeting a grisly end thanks to Chucky. And Season 3 gave Sawa his favorite characters yet.
“I would say the second one was a lot of fun to shoot,“ the actor says of Randall Jenkins. “The President was great. I liked playing the President. He was the most grounded, I hope, of all the characters. I did like playing him a lot.” Mancini adds, “He’s grounded, but he’s also really traumatized, and I thought you did that really well, too.”
The series creator also reveals a surprise correlation between President James Collins’ character arc and a ’90s horror favorite.
“I saw Devon’s role as the president in Season 3; he’s very Kennedy-esque,“ Mancini explains. “But then given the supernatural plot turns that happen, to me, the analogy is Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, the character that is seeing these weird little things happening around the house that is starting to screw with his sanity and he starts to insist, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,‘ and his spouse thinks he’s nuts. So I always like that. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, which is a movie I love.”
The finale of “Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesday, May 1 on USA & SYFY.
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