9 Classic Horror Films That Spawned Countless Imitators

The Ring, the American remake of the Japanese film Ringu, was a huge hit, scaring the pants off everyone and taking home $250 million worldwide. That meant that for a few years following 2002, it was time to remake every single Asian horror film you could possibly imagine in order to recapture that success.

The most popular one was The Grudge, a film that everyone lumps in with The Ring even though they share no creative talent and weren't even made by the same studio. They sure are similar in plot and aesthetic, though, and that's entirely deliberate.

There were plenty of others like Pulse, One Missed Call, and Shutter. With almost every poster and trailer for these remakes, it's painfully clear that they were all trying to pass themselves off as the next Ring, usually complete with a creepy little girl with long black hair.

In fact, if you look through all of the American remakes of Asian horror films, just about every single one came out within a period of five years, from 2004 to 2009. To Hollywood, it seemed like the success of The Ring could be replicated by just sticking any given Asian horror property in theaters and making it PG-13.

Predictably, none did nearly as well as The Ring simply because none were ever as good.