31 Days of Halloween: Ringu’s Impact
I think one of my favorite horror movies of the 90s and early 2000s is Ringu from Japan. I even like the American remake. I used to play those movies quite a lot back when I was younger. There’s something about Ringu and The Ring that other horror movies—other movies, don’t have, and I think it comes down to Ringu’s ability to hold us in terror and suspense for so long. Even in the American version, there is a tremendous amount of time when Naomi Watts is racing around at the end, only to end up surprised with a tremendous horror. There’s also pseudo artsy fartsy stuff on the tape which is confusing and unsettling, like the images on the tape itself, and later suggestions about a curse tie into other, deeper themes that are very well done. It’s actually not just a curse, it’s a curse on a VHS tape, and dooms you if you watch it—it’s explicitly that techno-threat that elevates our mundane, everyday “thing” into a universal fear. I’ve never seen that done before.
Ringu and The Ring tap into modern phobias. Something mysterious and dangerous is captured on tape, and it’s there waiting to be “shared”, or spread amongst other people. The “tape” is also somehow self-aware, inspiring and alerting a more menacing threat to come after us if we watch it, and that’s one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. This self-aware technology leads to a great scene with Sadako/Samara climbing out of the TV to scare the characters. The build is really well done, with the racing clock, the previous victims, the backstory–all of it works very well together to get to this moment. I think Ringu and The Ring remake tap into other fears we have too, like our strange fear of unknown images like in movie. Later sequels downplayed the “tape” aspect, and moved to something else, which was a mistake. Instead, it might be better to move toward the phone, using static or a voice for a new approach to the techo-fear menace, but future techno-fear movies need to keep it simple and not overcomplicate things like 2016’s Blair Witch.
We know less about Sadako than Samara. Also, the pure suspense and atmosphere is much more prevalent in the original Ringu than the remake, though I do appreciate it the cutaways to ugly faces because they are scary. Maybe that’s me, but that got me good when I first watched it. Ringu doesn’t do that, and focuses on the suspense instead. The “tape” in Ringu is maybe a little more creepy than the remake, but the plot is the same, though tied to a few Japanese cultural things I don’t fully understand. In Ringu, there is a lot of information given to the viewer, but it doesn’t reveal the whole mystery in a long exposition dump like in some horror movies. Ringu does lay out the rules of the curse right from the opening scene, and it presents itself like an urban legend every day young people discuss, which is a good way of engaging the audience.
Overall, Ringu is a great film. It has the perfect structure for suspense, mystery and audience engagement, a great combination for a horror story. The film builds it’s premise from the opening moment, where we hear about the rules and even see the result of them. It’s pretty simple. We don’t know why it’s happening or who made the “tape” we first hear about, or what it all really means. The main character is not even in that opening scene, but she’s front and center for the rest of it, and she’s a reporter, representing our desire for answers and explanation. This explanation changes the urban legend into news and then a personal story, as it impacts Reiko’s life and her son. This eventual transition is a really well done story progression, and after her son and Reiko are themselves cursed, the movie somehow finds a way to up the stakes even more. Some of Ringu reflects Japanese cultural fears and different aspects only unique to their society, but I can still appreciate it as a structurally great film, which has some amazingly sustained tension.
Thanks for reading this year’s 31 Days of Halloween.