I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Oh My God No! Another Shoy's Saturday Craptacular Extravaganza Marathon 

If you stuck it out this far, thank you. It is great therapy for me to get this kind of venom out and I hope a bit of entertainment for you. This is the last for today, I promise. 

Ringu (1998) Japan

This is the original Japanese film that was remade in the United States as The Ring. Now I was kind of backwards watching this - I saw the US sequel first (ick) and since critics seemed to think that The Ring was so incredibly 'creepy' I finally saw the first one. Bored. To. Tears. Having a little girl come out of a TV wasn't worth the lame storyline, bad acting and predictable plot progression.

So I see that Ringu is available and thought eh, why not? Might as well see what started this whole mess. And I was pleasantly surprised. If you haven't seen the original, I suggest you give it a peek. The US copied the movie effects almost scene for scene but the Japanese story is more complex and much more interesting. I keep wanting to say 'It starts like the US version' but that's backwards 'cause I saw them all backwards. So... Two teenagers talk about a videotape which is fabled to bear a curse that kills the viewer seven days after watching. The one who watched dies horribly, the other who sees her die goes insane.

Reiko, who happens to be a reporter doing a story about the cursed tape, discovers that her niece and her three other friends mysteriously died at the same time. She finds out that the four teenagers stayed in a rental cabin in Izu. Eventually, she flips to a photo of the teens with their faces blurred and distorted. Later, Reiko goes to Izu and finds an unlabeled tape in the reception room of the rental cottage where the teenagers stayed. Watching the tape inside Cabin B4, Reiko sees a series of seemingly unrelated disturbing images. As soon as the tape is over, Reiko sees a reflection in the television but no one's behind her. The phone rings and her week begins. She asks her ex to help. She has him take her picture - it's distorted too (why is never said). He watches the tape too (duh). He has her make him a copy so he can study it.

While doing this they find the phrase 'if you keep on doing 'shōmon', the 'bōkon' will come for you.' In English that's 'frolic in brine, goblins be thine'. No, really. Why? That's not explained either. The message is in a form of dialect from Izu Ōshima Island. The two sail for Ōshima and discover the history of the great psychic Shizuko Yamamura, who predicted a volcanic eruption of Mt. Miharayama and who was accused of faking supernatural powers. Yamamura threw herself into that volcano because of this. However, her daughter Sadako was even more powerful, able to kill a man with just a thought. This also caused her to be distrusted by the world and, ultimately, killed by her father.

So since the East is immersed in things about upset ancestors, grudges and curses, they believe the tape was made psionically (the girl made it with her dead mind I guess) and since conveniently they are also both psychic (Did I forget to mention that before? Sorry.) they uncover a well under Cabin B4 and realize, through a vision, that Sadako's father killed her and threw her into the well. They empty the well and find Sadako's body in an attempt to appease her spirit.

 When nothing happens to Reiko, they believe that the curse is broken. But Ryūji is killed the next day. That's where we finally get our 'girl comes out of the TV' effect everyone was shivering about. She's not wet and slimy in this one though, but her expression was a pretty nasty one. Reiko realized that copying the tape and showing it to someone else is what breaks the curse and so decides to pass it on - to save her son. Nice. Not a happy ending, but it is an ending and a lot better story than the US came up with.