| Today, Japanese horror seems
to differ both in style and passion with the known
and highly-regarded American horror, it is clearly
a bit of a more personal type of terror, a grip
of rage that can enter the far phycho tempo most
people at the Great Empire ignore. This mainly
is caused in a great deal by the lidicrous need
of violence and gore most yankees look for when
watching a so called scary film. They seem to
believe guts and blood are effective most of the
time, and they have proven to enjoy that, while
it is still obvious, very obvious, that in very
few cases violence works. Just on those movies
that the viewer doesn't expect to find violence
at all. On the other hand, Japanese horror doesn't
relay on dropping high loads of graphicness into
the screen, but to twist the viewer 's mind at
every moment, with disturbing visions of past
moments.
The original Ring of course
enters this selected category, and it is still
a fairly decent example on how is it that Japanese
horror works; and how much someone can endure
this kind of stuff, with it's half-catatonic,
half-noir atmosphere. It was directed by veteran
Hideo Nakata, a man who seemed to select the best
story to start with. While he did some remarkable
changes to the novel, the basic spirit is still
there (literally), and most of characters remain,
if not changed. Every moment of this movie is
relaxed, but in a somber way. In all scenes, people
expect something to happen, and when it doesn't
happen, you feel worse. Many of the footage found
is not comparable to any USA movie, which once
again brings the Japanese stereotype.
The story starts with two young
girls, that are having a pleasent conversation
regarding silly teenager stuff. The conversation
ends its pleasure when one of them brings up a
new and frightening topic. According to her, a
strange videotape kills every person who sees
it in a week's period, in which a long-haired
woman comes out of the TV screen to claim it's
victim. The other girl becomes uneasy, and asks
for more information. She then claims to have
seen the video with her friends while having a
camp in Izu. Soon enough the phone rings, which
startles both girls, as they have known the misterious
woman always rings to warn the victim's future
death. Luckily it's just one of the girl's mother.
The very next day we find out
that the girl who watched the tape died. Her aunt,
reporter Asakawa begins interviewing a bunch of
kids looking for more stories about the curious
video. All of them narrate the story about the
woman coming out of the TV, and about a teenage
couple that died in their car. Asakawa soon finds
out these were her niece's friends, and that they
saw the video as well. She then proceeds to go
to the local coroner video library, were she sees
the video about the time when the couple was found.
The teens' corpses seem to have no scratch, but
instead a shocked-like expression on their faces;
this confirms they died of fear.
In order to find out even more,
our beloved journalist travels to Izu, where she
finds the notorious videotape, abandoned in the
Hotel's video collection. She takes the cassette
into her house, and watches it. The said video
depicts an image of a mixed newspaper, while then
shows the eruption of Mount Mihara. It later displays
the word "Sada", while it fades into
a projection of a well, and some creepy hands
crawling out of it. Just as soon as the content
finishes, the phone rings. Asakawa of course answers,
but no voice is heard. Instead we hear some sort
of mosquito-like sound. Now is up to her to find
out what the hell happened, before she becomes
the next victim.
The pacing of this movie is appropiate,
there is no time in which you can get bored; and
the fact they decided to show a lot of facial
expresions instead of a lot of dialogue, makes
this a more personal movie, as stated above. Most
of the small details are left in their right place
in the movie, instead of being dropped all over
the plot, as seen in the 2002 american remake,
which killed all of this. In fact, the whole reworking
of the screenplay made it lose the grand disturbingness
of video, as it had to be updated for the new
plot.
Most performances stick good in
their roles. The main character, played by Nanako
Matsushima really does a decent work on being
both a struggling person and a mother, that must
protect her child from a forgotten being. And
while it is evident the stars cover most aspects
here, there is still one thing left untied, which
is the extra's work. They are given close to non-importance,
and while it is true they're extras, there is
still some genuine respect needed to make them
fit their roles. But then again, extras in Japanese
movies aren't really a big part of the show.
Music here isn't abundant, since
silence makes here a more eerie terror; yet the
sonorized parts really are a big deal here. Known
composer Kenji Kawai (Ultraman: Nexus),
provides the film with a different type of score
than what we usually hear in a horror flick. The
themes resemble in most cases like nature sounds:
mosquitos, wind, you name it. This of course is
a reference to the wilderness, as the main plot
about the spirit and the well was set on a forest.
There is a main cue, heard when we say the dates,
which works as a countdown for the character's
lives. In the end we get an anime-resembling tempo,
and a song, which is a good way to close the story,
and get ready to begin the sequel.
As for the special effects, much
isn't there to be commented. This type of horror
doesn't require much in the way of special effects,
it is mostly based on visual chalenges. Still
the scenes featuring the ghost at the end have
some decent work, we get a very convinicing dead
person, coming out of the TV as expected, and
in a slow, puzzling way.
It is a great pity the sequels
weren't put the heart and effort seen here. It
seemed that after it's great success, they fought
it could capitalized with anything, and took for
granted their merits. But that enforces greatly
this movie, and it's many variants will never
acomplish what was shown here. With an original
plot, a disturbing premise, and a rather unique
score, this will always be one of the best horror
films of this time.
|
(4/5)
