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Ringu

The remake wasn't a bad effort, captured some of the originals spookiness, but the thing that let it down the most was the actual tape content - looked way too much like a pop video/ opening credits sequence, and was too arty. The original Japanese vid was freaky and actually gave me nightmares, as you can't really work out what's going on, there's weird writhing bodies and the stuttering cut and paste feel, especially when the girl starts shambling towards you, are truly frightening. The fact that it's all done very deadpan, and in black and white, also add to a sense of hightened awareness - you're scanning the screen for information continuously, seeking clues. I remember leaving the cine with a mate of mine, both seasoned horror buffs, and us trying to make excuses to avoid having to walk home alone in the dark! Probably the scariest film I've ever seen, my wife has only got to hang her hair in front of her face and shuffle towards me and I freak out - and she hasn't even seen it :)

Heard the Japanese remakes (2 and 0) were lame, but haven't seen them.

Anyone seen "spirals", another b/w japanese film about a village obsessed with, well, spirals. One character turns into a giant snail, whilst another is taken off by a twister. Sinister, well shot and surreal, definately recommend it if you liked Ringu.
 
'Ring' & 'Spiral'

I liked both the original version of 'Ring' and the remake. They could both stand on their own as very well made films. I saw the remake before I saw the original. I think 'Ring' is so much better than the shit that Hollywood churns out that they try to pass off as horror, which usually involves teenage TV stars, wearing hilfiger being chased by someone with a large sharp object. Japan's horror flix from the mid to late 90's just blow America's away. I turned to my friend while watching the tape content, during the remake, and said, 'this looks like a Nine Inch Nails video!'.

I watched 'Spiral' on The Sundance Channel over here and I thought it was very creepy and surreal. I couldn't get the image of that guy wrapped around the wheel of the car or the guy wrapped inside the washing machine out of my mind for awhile.

Has anybody seen 'Audition'? This one slowly sneaks up on you and sucker punches you in the gut at the end. I actually looked away from the screen towards the end, and I consider myself and incredibly jaded moviegoer.

By the way, they just released the original 'Ring' novel over here that the movie is based on by Koji Suzuki.
 
Haven't seen Audition, but have seen a few others, I suppose the most recent would be "Battle Royale" with Beat takeshi as a sadistic high school teacher who forces his class to murder each other in order to be victorious. Bonkers!

Amongst my faves are the old classics "tetsuo" and "tetsuo 2: bodyhammer" - just sheer stylisitc brilliance. Also fantastically daft was this film called something like "Guitar Wolf" about a Japanese rockabilly band saving the world from zombies, with the help of a transvestite. Awesome!

Lenny N - the precise reason I din't like the Ring Clip was because it looked too much like a NIN vid - the original was much creepier and genuinely disturbing.
 
Battle Royale

I own the 2-disc special edition dvd of 'Battle Royale' and I have also read the book it is based on. Both are great!! I think 'Battle Royale' has one of the best scores I have heard in recent years.

I've also got the 1st 'Tetsuo' movie on VHS. The first time I saw that one I was blown away, it was like a Cronenberg movie crossed with anime! I haven't seen 'Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer'. I have been hunting for it to rent. Have you seen 'Tokyo Fist' by the same director? I liked that one as well. It's more a traditional film than the 'Tetsuo' movies but still just as good, the director is one of the stars as well.

I have heard of 'Guitar Wolf' but have never seen it. Speaking of Japanese zombie movies, there are quite a few making their dvd debut over here in the coming months, including 'Stacy' and 'Versus', which I have heard great things about.

Have you ever heard of the 80's Japanese horror film called 'Evil Dead Trap'? I've been thinking of ordering that one, but can't find anyone who has seen it.
 
I'd heard of Tokyo Fist, but not that it was by Mr Tetsuo! Never heard of 'Evil Dead Trap' what's it about? Really annoying that I can only get mainstream movies here, despite the prevlence of Japanese on the Island...
 
'Evil Dead Trap' is a slasher type movie that came out in the 80's and spawned a number of sequels. It's about a last nite TV show host who invites her audience to send her tapes they have made to show on her show. She receives one which shows the torture and murder of a woman. She assembles a camera crew and they set off to find the location of the murder. Once they find it, horror ensues.

There has been quite a few good Japanese horror movies released on dvd over here recently. 'Organ' is one, and the 'Guinea Pig' series is another, which I thought would never see the light of day again. One episode of the 'Guinea Pig' series achieved notoriety when the actor Charlie Sheen viewed the episode 'Flower of Flesh and Blood' and reported it to the authorities as a actual snuff film!!!! :eek!!!!:
 
Little kids in terror flicks

Originally posted by ginoide
i'm so tired of the <kids communicate with the Big Black Things from Beyond> thing. seems like it's the only narrative trick horror directors have in their mind (from <the exorcist> to <the others> and <6th sense>, including shining and ET if you want). boring.
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Yeah ginoide!

What is the continual appeal of the child in horror/ghost etc movies? Is it drawing on an idea that children are 'closer' to the 'other side' or the idea that they are untainted like adults and thus see things as they 'really' are?

I didn't much like the Ring (US version) - though the fact that when you see the first victim (y'know in the cupboard) my mate pissed himself laughing - so after that there was no way I could take it seriously.... :D What was weird though was the way the girl looked like she'd stepped out of the Victorian period (the same goes for the well scene where we see the mother looking very Victorian too). Even the freaky 'bedroom' looked like some kind of Miss Havisham (Great Expectations) thing..... (OK, apart from the TV!)

So on the kids front - any opinions?
 
hey you guys that saw audition!
can you email me the ending?
I left after the needle scene because I thought I figured out the ending and my sick imagination couldn't take it but now I am pissed because I want to know what really happened after sitting through such a scary scary movie!
thanks!
 
'Dark Waters'

Has anybody seen Hideo Nakata's 'Dark Waters' yet? I saw the review of it in the last ish of FT and am really interested in seeing this one, but I will probably have to wait for the DVD over here. Just wondering if anybody has seen it yet......


:cool:
 
Re: Little kids in terror flicks

Marius said:
So on the kids front - any opinions?
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Because kids are evil. And even when they're not evil, they're pretty damn sinister. Seriously, they scare the crap out of people. Horror films just confirm our deep, subconcious belief that they're up to something no good at all.
 
The Ring - can someone explain something?

Recently watched the US remake (http://www.uk.imdb.com/title/tt0298130/) of the Japanese horror, and found it generally enjoyable.

There's something I'm still struggling to understand though. Where did the first copy of the tape come from?

Is it supposed to have materialsied all by itself? Was it an ordinary video of the well, taken for some reason by someone involved in building the cabin, but which came to feature images pertintent to Samara's life by virtue of its being possessed?

Were the four teenagers in the cabin the first people to see the tape? If so, how come the girl's friend has heard the legend of a tape that kills you 7 days after you see it?

What's more, the area where the cabins and the well are is nowhere near the island where Samara and her parents live? So why did they risk killing her on someone else's land? Why not do away with her on the island? And how did they obtain the co-operation of the people who built the cabins? Because presumably these people were involved in covering up the existence of the well?

Too many loose ends for my liking. If anyone can shed any light, I'd be grateful for their input!
 
If I recall correctly then the first tape of the well was made by the doctor who hid Sadako's supposedly dead body down it, although I'm not sure if he made it before or after he put her down there.


I have only ever seen the japanese version though...
 
IIRC in the Japanese vertion (might have been from ring 2 or ring 0, sorry they have kind of melded into one film in my head ) the video was in someones video recorder late at night when a groop of teanagers were all a bit squiffy, a strange chanel apeared on the tv and disapeared soon after, the tape taped this automaticly, after that they got a phone call...
(this wasn't shown but it was talked about by a future victem near the start of one of the films I think)
 
River_Styx said:
If I recall correctly then the first tape of the well was made by the doctor who hid Sadako's supposedly dead body down it, although I'm not sure if he made it before or after he put her down there.


I have only ever seen the japanese version though...
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That's interesting Styx. In the Yank version, there's no reference to a doctor - we just see Samara's mother suffocating her in front of the well and throwing her down it. Quite how she, or Naomi Watts, survive the fall without terminal injuries is beyond me.
 
Lord_Flashheart said:
IIRC in the Japanese vertion (might have been from ring 2 or ring 0, sorry they have kind of melded into one film in my head ) the video was in someones video recorder late at night when a groop of teanagers were all a bit squiffy, a strange chanel apeared on the tv and disapeared soon after, the tape taped this automaticly, after that they got a phone call...
(this wasn't shown but it was talked about by a future victem near the start of one of the films I think)
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that's the kind of explanation that's missing from the remake. Thanks LF.
 
The books explain everything, dunno if there are any english translaeions availible yet but I'd expect some enterpriseing publisher must have translated them properly by now...
 
Much that I squirm at the very thought of the US remake, the upside of it is that it's created enough popularity to warrant an English language version of the original book (which the film was based on, as opposed to a novelisation of the film)

Curiously I was asking for it in Borders a few days back and they said that it is a stock item though I have to wait a few days for the next order to come in.

The author is Suzuki Koji


For generally fanatical info on all things Ring:

http://ringworld.somrux.com/
 
Conners_76 said:
That's interesting Styx. In the Yank version, there's no reference to a doctor - we just see Samara's mother suffocating her in front of the well and throwing her down it. Quite how she, or Naomi Watts, survive the fall without terminal injuries is beyond me.
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The doctor was investigating a powerful psychic woman (can't remember her name) he fathered a baby with her (Sadako) the child was able to kill people with her thoughts and so he tried to kill Sadako, hiding her body in the well, but she wasn't dead.
I'm pretty sure that the well was located at the doctor's holiday home and this is why he was filming in the garden.
Although as to how the footage ended up being broadcast I don't think is ever explained.
 
Lord_Flashheart said:
The books explain everything, dunno if there are any english translaeions availible yet but I'd expect some enterpriseing publisher must have translated them properly by now...
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Please don't say you've bought me it for Christmas! :eek!!!!: I'd never be able to sleep again if I read that!

I still have loads of questions left over from that film too.

What did the boy mean when he said about the woman helping Samara at the end, and how she shouldn't have done that? Surely things are no different than they were before? She came out of the TV same as she did at the beginning of the film?
 
I saw all bar the end of the Japanese version on Sci-Fi a few weeks/months back, and as I recall a kid from the city went to stay in the country and when he got there he set the VCR to tape his fav TV show on channel summat, but out in the sticks channel summat wasn't available and he therefore taped 60 minutes worth of nothing, only when he watched the tape he saw the images, he showed it to his pals, and 7 days later they all died ... :eek!!!!: scarey stuff, I'm kinda glad I had to go to the loo and missed the end ...
 
The original version really messed my head up bigtime, it's scary enough as it is but when it came to the bit where Sadako comes out of the TV I got totally freaked out and looked away just before you see her face.

And what you don't see is always worse 'cos you go away imagining all sorts of things that are much more horrible than any real image, which is what I did for the next couple of months.

The real joke was that all you actually see is what's on the movie poster...
 
I suggest you borrow all 3 of the original Ring trilogy from your video store.
My understanding of it is that the young girl, Sadako, was the child of a psychic mother whose powers she exceeded with an ability to kill by force of will. Her father killed her and shoved her down the well where she survived for seven days. Hence the sentence of the Ring Tape. In the second movie, the girl who survived at the beginning of the movie is touched by the passing presence of Sadako and although driven mad, gains the power to transmit her message onto tape by thought. (And water features heavily too.)

By number three, we learn that Sadako was in fact a twin. One has the abilty to heal herself and others and the other (mad presumably) is the killer. It is the amalgamation of the 2 that lies within the well. Able to survive and regenerate and transmit her thoughts to whatever recordable medium lies in the immediate area.

And now I'm confused.

In the inferior US version...what's with the horses?
And why was the cutest asian kid ever (Yoishi) cast as an oddly repellant child for the States?
 
Jimv said:
And why was the cutest asian kid ever (Yoishi) cast as an oddly repellant child for the States?
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Because due to the 'magic' of hollywood anoying/irksome=Cute/vunerable.:rolleyes:

see the kid in jerry maguire or just about every kid in a Speilberg movie for more examples of this strange logic.
 
The Ring Rocks

I dunno if its my age, I used to watch all manner of horror, video nasty, occult stuff, and it not really scaring me. But in the the last 12 months have been freaked out by 2 films-28 Days Later and The Ring (US Version).

I have seen the Japanese version but it didn't freak me as much as the US version. I have always been like that with Japanese films. Always have felt a little alienated from them right from the premise. But the US version obviously got all my sentimantalites(sic) by the balls. Well I guess it was a Dreamworks movie....
Was surprised that the same Director (Gore something) did one of my other favorite films of the last 12 months-that word of mouth blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbien.

Have been bitterly disappointed by the so called Horror Reinessance (sic) , Cabin Fever was ok, Texas Chainsaw pointless, and am just hoping Dawn of the Dead is at least zombie /survialist horror worthy. So to come across The Ring and actually being scared was a result, for me anyway
 
Lord_Flashheart said:
... the video was in someones video recorder late at night when a groop of teanagers were all a bit squiffy, a strange chanel apeared on the tv and disapeared soon after, the tape taped this automaticly, after that they got a phone call...
(this wasn't shown but it was talked about by a future victem near the start of one of the films I think)
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Lord F has got it right - this is why the original tape was so bloody scary, it was taped from a 'dead' channel which, IIRC, no-one could find broadcasting again.

I've never seen the US remake. Saw the Japanese one at the cinema well over two years ago and it scared me senseless; far more than anything ever has before or since. Bloody good film, but I don't think I'll be watching it again.
 
In case you want another dose of same, I'd recommend 'Dark Water' from the same stable. Not as scary, but creepy.

BTW. Can anyone recommend some good Chinese ghost story movies?
 
The day after channel 4 showed 'Ring' they showed another Japanese horror 'Audition' where a Japanese man sets up fake auditions to meet a new wife and comes across a seemingly innocent woman with blood thirsty intentions.

I've watched lots of horror films but it's the first one I have had to turn off. The torture sequence made me feel physically sick...other than that it was a great film.
 
I started watching Audition but fell asleep about half way through. That's not a slur on the film I just had to watch it with the sound off and one thing lead to another :)
 
I started to watch Audition, but had to turn it off as I had to go to bed. I think it was on a Sunday or something ridiculous. Maybe it was a good thing I did turn it off after what you've said, Lillith.
I have a pretty strong stomach when it comes to horror films (which usually surprises ppl lol), but torture scenes? Hmm not nice.
 
Saw Audition at the cinema, quite a nasty little effort, especially the bit with the tongue!

The Suicide Club is worth looking at if you like Jap horror, though IMO the plot falls apart in the second half:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312843/

Battle Royale is a goody, particularly if you like your horror with a twist of ultraviolence:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266308/

Tetsuo I $ II are both weirded out body horror movies, about a decade old now but still recommended viewing for xenophiles. The director of these has a recent effort out, Ichi the Killer, not sure if it counts as horror though, maybe more an ecchi Yakuza movie that just happens to be rather horrific.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096251/
 
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