So this past Halloween, the g/f and I finally saw “Ringu.” (I take my time getting around to these things.) It scared the bejeezuz out of me. Now I’m wondering if I should go looking for another fix, or be content where I am.
Which sequels (original Japanese) are worth seeing, if any? I heard the immediate sequel “Spiral” was so bad it’s basically deemed not to exist anymore. As far as “Ring 2” proper, I’ve heard everything ranging from “scarier than the original” to “outright embarrassing.” After that it just seems to get crazy: Sadako as a young actress? Wha?
Is the American “Ring” worth seeing if you liked the original? I should say that I think American filmmakers have largely forgotten how to make scary movies (the last good one I saw was The Others, and that was made by a Spaniard), so I’d be going in expecting it, fairly or not, to be vulgar and obvious compared to the original. Is it worth it?
The Japanese sequel and prequel are good, but not as good as the original movie. The third movie is far more in the romance/tragedy vein than horror, so be warned if you’re expecting scares.
The American remake is pretty bad as far as I’m concerned. It goes so overboard in trying to make everything spooky that it disolves into self parody. Plus it’s Sadako coming out of the TV moment is much more special effecty and nowhere near as creepy.
Crap! I forgot to comment on the American sequel! It’s got a few elements of the Japanese sequel in it but is mostly its own story. And it is crap. They seriously have a scene where a car is attacked by CGI deer that’s meant to be scary.
I saw the American version (The Ring) first, and I loooooooved it. It scared the bejesus out of me, and after having watched it dozens of times it still does. I find it superior to the original in every way. I will say that Sadako is waaaaay creepier than Samara though, and I **never ever ** want to see her jerky little corpse and misformed eye again. Really; never. I can’t even stand to look at a still picture of her.
Now, the Ring 2(American) was quite disappointing. It had a comletely different look and feel, due to it being done by a different director. And really, the atmosphere of the first one is a major factor in it’s creepiness. You heard correctly about Spiral, and I have not seen the Japanes version of Ring 2.If you want to see some good Asian horror / thriller see A Tale of Two Sisters I can’t say enough about this movie. Suspenseful, beautifully photograph and scored, superb acting. It’s awesome. You might also like The Grudge(both original and American are good, in my opinion, but for different reasons). There’s also Audition, which is a tad to graphic for my taste, but the acting is excellent, and it’s just,um, disturbing.
What you should do next is make someone else watch it, or else you die in 7 days. Don’t answer any phone calls, either, though, I don’t think that would help (:dubious: sorry, I forget, like bad experiences, I try to put really scary experiences out of my mind, too).
Speaking of which, I’m amused at the subversion of the title in the American version. In Ringu, the ring is the phone call you get. In The Ring it’s the light around the opening to the well.
I suggest you stay away from the Japanese prequels and sequels because they are just painfully boring.
I actually saw Ring after Ringu and found it a lot better (except for the climax, Sadako is a lot scarier than Samara).
Ring 2 is a snore-fest with a stupid story.
I thought the American version of Ring was pretty good, but the American version of The Grudge was bad. The Japanese version scared the crap out of me.
A Tale of Two Sisters is a great bit of work. Somehow the house itself really gave me the creeps, and I’ve never been able to properly figure out why. Even the wallpaper is somehow creepy. A lot of thought went into this one.
The original Dark Water is good. Haven’t seen the remake, but the trailers of it were enough to convince me the makers had really missed the point.
The Audition is just plain horrific. Very nasty stuff indeed.
R-Point - a Korean ghost story, but set in the Vietnam war. Kind of fun if you can get hold of it.
Old Boy - not really scary, but highly reccomended! An odd revenge story, borrows heavily from The Count of Monte Cristo, with a few twists.
I agree with Matt, though I would say that I loved the American version of The Ring. I saw Ringu after I saw The Ring, and I was bored to tears with Ringu and I thought that it had many elements that were just bizarre (the whole psychic thing, WTF?) The Japanese original for The Grudge is the aforementioned Ju-on, and I liked that one a lot more than the American version. It’s like with the American version they forgot most of the things that made the original creepy. I also liked The Eye a lot.
I don’t know if the sequels are any good, but they’re available. The Ringu Anthology of Terror box set contains Ringu, Rasen (which is Spiral), Ringu 2, and Ringu 0 (which is a prequel to the series).
Kairo (which may be called The Circuit in English, I don’t know). Extremely creepy. Uzumaki (The Vortex). A little more cartoonish, but still very creepy. There are a couple of threads discussing it here. Jisatsu Saakuru (Suicide Club). Less horror, more gross-out. Unbelievably weird.
And then if you’d like to see what Ringu would be like if Sadako were played by a porn actress who kills everyone in the nude, there’s Ringu: Kanzen-ban. Oddly, this isn’t a re-make hoping to cash in on a fad. This version (made for TV) was actually the first adaptation of the book, made three years before the famous version.
If you’re looking for more old-school Japanese horror, you might want to check out Kwaidan.
(And of course, there’s another good half-dozen b&w Japanese horror flicks that I’d heartily recommend if only I weren’t blanking on all of their names…)
I’m worse, I think…I’m breaking up into uncontrollable giggles at this. >_>
There’s also a manga of it that’s worth tracking down, presuming you read Japanese, or can find a translation. Don’t think it’s got an official translation. Totally different story on a similar idea.
There’s also a Ring manga (which follows the movie fairly closely, and fleshes it out a little), which is pretty good, and a sequel manga, which I haven’t read yet. Both are officially translated.
Big fan of Japanese horror, including Ringu, but personally I feel that the American Ring is the better movie–that one really messed me up; I had trouble sleeping for at least a couple weeks after seeing it.
It’s not a ghost story, but my second favorite Japanese horror flick is The Cure, so maybe you could give that one a try. Also, take a look at the aforementioned Uzumaki–not because it’s particularly scary or good (IMO), but because it’s just so darn weird. The video-game inspired, St. John’s Wort, may also be in the running for most f’ed-up Japanese horror pic.
Oh, and as far as the Ringu novels go, I’ve only read the first one, but I thought it was a fairly enjoyable read. It struck me more as a mystery/thriller rather than horror, though.
