Review rated by 1 Ciao members on average: helpful
Ring is a supernatural Japanese horror film that has only recently arrived in England, despite being made nearly three years ago. Its success in Japan was such that it has already spawned two sequels.
The story centres around an schoolkids Urband Myth about a weird video tape. Anyone who sees it dies exactly one week later. After a group of young friends die after allegedly seeing just such a video, a young female reporter and her ex-husband try to track down the origin of the myth. They find the tape, but make the terrible mistake of watching it.....!!!
The idea behind the film owes a lot to David Cronenberg's Videodrome, but this is a very different film, closer to the weird French classic 'Eyes Without a Face'. Like that film, for much of the time Ring is slow paced, mundanely directed and verging on the uninspired.
But then, just when you're about to nod off, the film hits you with an image so spooky, so weird, and so original it makes you gasp.
The plot makes little sense, and the characters make amazing leaps of logic that seem to be based in obscure Japanese superstition or myth, but certainly not in anything as banal as common sense. Best not to try and make sense of it, but treat the film as a nightmare, or even a surrealist piece.
The creature at the centre of the mystery is genuinely creepy, and is presented so strongly that she immeadiately takes her place alongside the Bride of Frankenstein. The music throughout is excellent, a slow scraping that keeps the nerves on edge.
