Film Review: Ringu (1998)

Director: Hideo Nakata

I was drawn to this film from the moment I saw the US film adaptation of the Koji Suzuki novel, wondering how that further abstraction from my milieu (i.e. Japanese Culture vs Western Culture) would affect the trope and artistic merit of this film. Surely the parent from whom 'The Ring' was born had as much, if not more, to offer in the way of bizarreness and terror-inducing visuals. Unfortunately, it was not good. Those elements of The Ring that, for me, made it terrifying, entertaining and actually a very good film were all missing. The strange video (tame, boring and uninspired in comparison to The Ring's almost art house visual), the desaturated landscapes, the crazy, inexplicable events (the horse, the photos), even the creepy house under which our emoesque antagonist spluttered away her final breathes and chipped a nail was about as creepy as Butlins.

But perhaps I'm being unfair, I'm making a comparison and could never see Ringu for what it is. It has elements that I think are very respectable, especially the cut-frames and the emergence from the television reminding us that we're watching a horror movie but not actually in it - they impressed me and worked quite well. Remakes are almost always bad, a fair and oft-chanted mantra, but occasionally it works the other way too.