5. Ringu (The Ring)
Another film like Ju on, which does not rely on blood and guts to elicit fear in the viewer, is the terrifying Ringu. A VHS cassette, which is said to be cursed, is doing the rounds among Japanese teenagers and they are popping up dead - usually with terrible fear on their faces. Reiko, a journalist, does a bit of snooping and comes across the video and watches it. Afterwards she gets a phone call signifying that she has a week to live. Reiko turns to Ryuji, her ex husband for help in solving the mystery. Their little son gets a hold of the tape and watches it which makes solving the riddle more frantic. They trace the video to the island of Izu Oshima and with time running out, they go there and learn that the tape was made psionically by a dead girl called Sadako. She was the daughter of Shizuko, a famous psychic who committed suicide due to being called a fake. Sadako's powers outstripped her mother's and she was thrown down a well by her father. The video is Sadako's revenge. Reiko and Ryuji find the well and recover Sadako's corpse. Reiko survives the curse and they think it is the end of the horror. Ryuji is at home the next day when he is amazed to see the TV turn itself on and Sadako crawl out of the TV - literally scaring him to death. Ryuji had been in the process of calling Reiko who hears his terrible last moments. She realises that she survived because she copied the tape and passed it on to Ryuji. This is the key to survival - passing a copy on to someone else. Reiko has to save her son before it is too late. The image of Sadako coming out of the television to frighten Ryuji has now become an iconic scene in J Horror circles, much parodied, the scene still retains its power to frighten viewers. Ringu has a terrific atmosphere of menace the whole way through. Much of it is suggestive horror - for example, we don't see how people die, but we see their faces contorted into absolute panic and terror in death. The VHS cassette is deeply unnerving with strange images that we must attempt to decipher alongside the protagonists. The film is tight and well paced and it invokes in the viewer a dread of what is going to happen next. The grainy, almost documentary, feel of the film makes it even more frightening as well as the revelation we come to at the end - Sadako is an implacable enemy who defies attempts to tame her. The film may alienate gore hounds who like splatter in their horror and a gory death every five minutes. However, Ringu is infinitely more terrifying than most gore movies and is worth watching, even if it is only to catch the notorious end. Sleepless nights beckon!