Ringu
Ringu was first released in 1998 and it proved to be an absolute revelation for the horror genre. Western horror films were stagnating with watered down teen horror flicks like I Know What You Did Last Summer. With the release of Ringu so called J-Horror burst onto the scene and suddenly we were awash with unnaturally animated Japanese girls with long black hair.
Ringu was based on a successful novel which in turn drew on a Japanese folk tale. It is about a videotape which if watched will lead to the viewer’s death one week later. It kicks off with some teens talking about the tape and how a boy was cursed after watching it and died. One of the girls reveals that she watched it and received a strange phone call afterwards which told her she would die in one week. The prophecy comes true. The tape spreads like a virus with teens daring each other to view it and the bodies begin to pile up.
A reporter named Reiko begins to investigate the claims and finds there is some truth to them. She enlists the help of her ex-husband and uncovers a link to a mysterious psychic and a dead girl named Sadako. When her son accidentally sees the tape she desperately battles to find a way to break the curse.
Like most J-Horror films Ringu is essentially a ghost story. The central theme is of someone suffering a violent death and becoming bound to the physical world unable to pass on to the after life and hungry for vengeance. These stories draw on folk tales that go back centuries in Japan and traditionally the ghost is female with long black unkempt hair and dressed in white. The hair relates to Kabuki theatre where various wigs identify characters and the white clothing is traditional funeral attire in Japan.
The film was a massive success in Japan giving a modern twist to a popular traditional genre and it was the highest grossing film in the country on release. Naturally it was remade for US audiences but the original version is far superior. It is a slow brooding film and director Hideo Nakata builds the tension agonisingly slowly, shredding your nerves with a studied determination which is horribly effective.
Upon first viewing I was blown away by Ringu, it offered a terrific alternative to teen horror. The psychological aspect and the tension were fresh and for once here was a horror film that actually intended to scare the audience. Instead of being content to make you jump out of your seat a couple of times this film was aiming to disturb your sleep, and it worked.
There is one scene in the film which provides such a fantastic shock that it is now infamous. Having bought it I set about making my friends sit down and watch it and took great pleasure in watching their reaction to that scene. My best mate had the ultimate response, literally climbing backwards on the couch and letting out an involuntarily wail which I won’t let him forget. The DVD also had a bonus which was the actual tape footage and after watching that I used my mobile to phone the house, the look of terror on his face was priceless.
Ringu was an important release and like all great horror movies it inspired a raft of copies. None had the impact of the original.
