10 Most Savage Japanese Horror Films Ever
2. Ringu (The Ring) (1998)
A spooky video creates havoc among Japanese teens - killing them exactly one week after viewing it. Plucky news reporter Reiko teams up with her ex husband Ryuji and they view the video, and they receive a phone call warning of their untimely demise in seven days time. So the couple must don their Scooby Doo hats and go investigating - which becomes an even more crucial endeavour when Reiko catches her young son viewing the tape.
Impudent brat.
Astonishing revelations of a young psychic girl called Sadako - she of the long black hair - being thrown down a well lead Reiko and Ryuji to what they think is the root of the video's curse and hopefully its power will be ended. But they don't comprehend just how pissed off Sadako is with the world...
Ringu does not have blood, gore, violence. Instead it relies on fostering a growing sense of menace and dread, counting down the days until our protagonists meet their fate. As a murder mystery, it works well as it is very off kilter from the beginning. The content of the cassette is again, not gory or violent - but deeply unsettling and surreal when we get to see it. This is a clever, cerebral film.
Of course, the most famous and iconic sequence comes with Sadako climbing out of the television. When you watch it, the dawning horror of what she is about to do will strike ice cold fear in your heart - "She's not going to do it! She's not going to do it! Oh my God she just did it!". And it is a brilliant piece of terrifying Horror cinema which exemplifies the innovation and creativity of our friends in Japan.