4. Ringu (1998)
Ringu, or The Ring, examines the idea of the things we watch killing us in such a graphic way that, for a time, it was the defining horror of the late nineties. It also plays on the fears of not wanting to pull away from something. What will happen if you don't send that chain letter/email? What happens if you say 'Candyman' five times in the mirror? What happens if you watch that video tape? The film focuses on Reiko as she investigated the video tape curse and what happens when people watch it. From the terrified faces on the corpses, or the inhabitants of the mental asylum, some awful clearly happens. Ideas of supernaturalism and spiritual identity layer the film but it all comes down to what happens when you watch the tape. Although now the black and white static images can be seen everywhere, back in 1998 it felt fresh and confusing. Of course, the money moment of the little girl crawling out the television is, indeed, the things nightmares are made of. A brilliant horror, this marked the resurgence of Japanese Horror and created a 'brand' almost as many films were remade for the western market and leaked into gaming via Silent Hill, etc. It is this original film, however, that made the nightmare of being killed by something you love doing (watching television) all the more real and, for a time, Sadako Yamamura was the scariest monster out there, far surpassing Freddy, Jason, et al.