Ringu (1998)    

Solid Japanese horror/ghost story. As interesting as it is terrifying. The film's strength is in the historical probing and stirring flashbacks into the how and why of the current predicament. This comes as a welcome and much needed gesture in a genre, of which, admittedly, I know little. Most important horror film since Scream. Why? Read this:

"While the success of Ring has given Hollywood reason to attempt assimilating J-Horror concepts into the mainstream Hollywood system, the original Japanese films themselves have also found audiences within the US and around the world. Among the best of these are Crazy Lips (Hakkyosuru kuchibiru '00), Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse (Kairo '01), and Huguchinsky's Spiral (Uzumaki '00). Spiral, a surrealistic interpretation of the world famous Junji Ito Manga, integrates imagery similar to that of Tim Burton and David Lynch with a distinctly Japanese, Manga-oriented style. The film in many ways represents an understanding of the genre's roots and influences, but at the same time pushes the boundaries of where they previously had been taken. According to Fangoria Magazine Editor Anthony Timpone the J-Horror genre has hit America in the new millenium in full stride, "Luckily, more and more of these films have been getting the theatrical exposure at art houses...in film festivals...on enterprising video labels...or from overseas companies on-line. Just about every American city has an anime store. You can find this stuff. And when you do, you won't be disappointed."

I will not have time to see the American version The Ring, which came out just four years after, but here's a decent review of it I saw on 12Gauge by Garrett Mok, who is brilliant because he mentions a Dutch/French film called The Vanishing. I've never mentioned The Vanishing before now.

I personally can't get enough of Naomi Watts these days, the English-born, Australian-raised, LA-living blonde force-of-nature from David Lynch's weirdo masterpiece "Mulholland Drive" of last year. The best friend of a fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman, Watts has been toiling for 15 years in the film industry before being 'discovered' by Hollywood at the ripe young age of 33. A daughter of a single mother and a denizen of three continents, Watts beat out four other actresses, including Gwyneth Paltrow, to be the Ring wearer. In this movie, she plays Rachel, a tough Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter and a single mom out to solve the mysterious death of her teen-age niece, and her three friends, who die after viewing an apparent urban legend video tape.

"The Ring," which is a US remake of a Japanese horror smash of 1998, is doing so well in theaters now, I probably don't have to explain the deceivingly simple premise. But in case you haven't seen it, or heard about it, here it is: you view the killer tape, you get a call, and in seven days, you die. Rachel, a dutiful reporter with a personal motive to solve the lethal enigma, views the tape. It is full of discordant, disturbing, images. She gets an eerie phone call. She has seven days.

With the help of her ex-husband Noah, Rachel tracks down the references in the killer tape; a ladder, a woman in an oval mirror, a well. The atmosphere and the pace is damp and brisk, and the terror comes from the psychological dread that builds up amid the steadfast assemblage of leads—some supernatural, some by good old-fashioned gumshoe work. Something is terribly amiss on a Pacific Northwest island and its surroundings: an unseen evil force is at work, and that evil maybe that of a — well, I won't tell you.

The movie raises more questions than it answers, as should a good thriller, and when the finale topples over the viewer's rattled psyche, it is terrifying. I have not felt blown away by a horror ending like this since "The Vanishing," a fine and surgically rendered 1988 Dutch psychological thriller.

It's "Omen" for the post-MTV generation. And as for Watts, a far cry from her 1996 "Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering." A ring of spotlight is finally shining on a talented actress.

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