Ring 0 (AKA Ring 0: Birthday)

Dir: Norio Tsuruta

2000

**

If there is one thing that destroys a horror franchise, it’s the dreaded prequel. Ring was phenomenal, a story already known in Japan, suddenly taking the entire world by storm and changing the horror genre forever. The original story was based on Koji Suzuki’s novel which would be the beginning of a series of stories. The novel had been made into a popular TV film so they knew they had to do one better for the theatrical feature, and that is exactly what they did – to world-wide acclaim. An adaption of he novel’s follow up, Spiral, was ordered immediately but early test audiences gave it the thumbs down and a new sequel was written for Ring 2. It was a strong sequel too but far from Suzuki’s novel. For the third installment it was decided that they should return to Suzuki’s series and so they skipped Spiral and the third novel Loop and went to the forth book in the Ring series that was a collection of three short stories; Coffin in the sky, Lemonheart and Happy Birthday. The book itself was called Birthday, as is the film, but the plot deals entirely with the Lemonheart story that looks into a particular point in Sadako’s life, before she became a television-dwelling ghost. It’s great they went back to Suzuki’s work but I find that the worst thing you can do with a horror icon, is to tell its background story and somehow justify its behavior. Sadako is terrifying in Ring and in Ring 2 but in Ring 0: Birthday, she’s just a girl with long hair and not in the least bit scary. It is set thirty years before the events of Ring – although it doesn’t look anything like the 1960s. We follow Akiko Miyaji, a reporter whose fiancé and fellow reporter was killed during Shizuko Yamamura's publicized ESP demonstration years before. She begins the film by interviewing Sudo, an elementary school principal and a former teacher of Shizuko's daughter, Sadako, in an attempt to gain information and evidence that Sadako inherited her mother's nensha powers (also known as Thoughtography or projected thermography, psychic photography and nengraphy, the ability to burn images from one's mind onto surfaces such as photographic film by psychic means). Meanwhile, a 19-year-old Sadako (played by Yukie Nakama who auditioned for the part after being constantly teased by friends that she looked like the character since the first Ring film had come out) joins an acting troupe as an understudy as a form of therapy suggested by her doctor to rid her of her nightmares. Sadako has natural beauty and charisma for the play, infuriating her senior, Aiko Hazuki, whose relationship with the troupe director, Yusaku Shigemori, sours due to the latter's newfound favour for the young trainee. Aiko is later found murdered by a figure in white, thus Sadako takes her place for the upcoming play as the lead character. Sadako attracts and reciprocates the attention of the troupe sound director, Hiroshi Toyama, much to the disappointment of costume designer and Toyama's girlfriend, Etsuko Tachihara. While praised by Shigemori and Toyama, other troupe members grow to distrust and fear her, as they suspect that she is the one who caused Aiko's death and other supernatural occurrences, including strange dreams pertaining to a well and an apparition of a girl in white with long hair very similar to Sadako. At this point I really wanted them all to have television sets. Meanwhile, Akiko is told by Sudo that though initially pleasant, Shizuko descended to madness before her suicide after moving in with Dr. Heihachiro Ikuma, and that Sudo often heard strange childlike noises in the attic. Etsuko, wanting to discover Sadako's origins, contacts Sadako's psychiatrist, but he refuses to answer and throws away Sadako's résumé; the résumé is taken by Akiko's assistant, allowing him and Akiko to locate Sadako in the troupe. Once they find her they begin to photograph her, only for her to break their camera telekinetically. The pair later discover that all photographs contain ghostly faces and a girl with long hair, confirming Akiko's suspicion of the existence of two Sadakos. Shigemori, having been obsessed with Sadako, says that he knows of her dark past and tells that he will kill her if she tries to kill him so they could be together. However, Toyama interrupts the process and Shigemori is killed through a cut that also wounds Toyama. However, Sadako manages to heal him just by touching him and later is able to make a disabled man regain his ability to walk. The two confess their love for each other and promise to leave the troupe and live together after finishing their last play. The play is a disaster as Sadako, influenced by recordings of her mother's demonstration played by Etsuko, sees visions of her mother and other reporters during the demonstration and kills her psychiatrist. The troupe members, except Toyama, beat her to death, though is informed by Akiko that their job is not yet done. They visit Ikuma who tells them that Sadako, once a single individual, split into two beings resembling each of her parents; the malevolent one who resembled her unknown father is kept from growing by Ikuma in the attic. Before they can kill it, both Sadakos merge with each other and escape with Toyama. Then, in the somewhat anti-climactic finale, the combined Sadako goes on a killing spree. It is as exciting as the film gets but it arrives too little too late for real horror fans. The horror is missing and the terror is non-existent. The well comes into play again but I wouldn’t say it ties up the story particularly well and the original Ring is still far superior. There is little intensity and absolutely no payoff. It’s actually rather boring, which is probably why we haven’t seen adaptations of any of the other novels in the Ring series. The Grudge got it right and also knew when to call it a day, such a shame after such a great first chapter.

Ring 2
Dir: Hideo Nakata
1999
****
Ring was huge upon its release in 1999 – not only in Japan but around the world. Koji Suzuki’s novel was well known in Japan and Ring – the first in his Ring series – had already been adapted for television. As the first was so popular, well known and so hotly anticipated, it was decided that Suzuki’s second novel – Rasen (Spiral) – should be adapted back to back with Ring. Unfortunately, audiences hated it, so the makers of Ring decided to quickly write a totally new follow up story that has nothing to do with Suzuki’s series and simply called it Ring 2. It’s shame in many respects as it would be great to see a series of films – possibly from different directors – following the other books in the series; Loop, Birthday, S and Tide but rather surprisingly, Ring 2 is a very strong film in its own right. I would call it more of an eerie mystery rather than a horror and I can’t say I was as scared as I was during the first, but I was far more intrigued by the bigger story. The film picks up a weeks after the events of the first. After the body of Sadako Yamamura is retrieved from the well, her uncle Takaishi is summoned by police to identify her. Detective Omuta explains to Takaishi that forensics concluded Sadako may have survived in the well for thirty years. Forensics experts reconstruct her body, giving it to Takaishi, who gives his niece a burial at sea, hoping to be free from the guilt he has carried since her mother Shizuko committed suicide because of his actions. The police search for Reiko Asakawa following the sudden death of her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama and her father Koichi a week later. Mai Takano, Ryuji’s university assistant, investigates his death, visiting Reiko’s news office where her colleague Okazaki joins Mai in her search for answers. They find a burnt out videotape in Reiko’s apartment, Mai sensing Reiko’s father died the same way as Ryuji. Investigating the urban legend of the cursed videotape, Okazaki meets a high school student Kanae Sawaguchi, who gives him a copy of the tape but admits she watched it herself. She begs Okazaki to watch the tape before the week is up, but he chickens out and hides his copy in his desk drawer at work. Mai and Okazaki go to a mental hospital to speak to Masami Kurahashi, a friend of Reiko’s niece Tomoko, but learn she is both mute and has a phobia of televisions, having witnessed Tomoko’s death. They meet Doctor Oisho Kawajiri, Masami’s doctor, and a paranormal researcher, who is trying to expel the psychic energy within Masami through experimentation. Mai steps out for some air, encountering Masami, whose presence causes Sadako to materialise on a television and terrify the patients. Mai finds Reiko’s son Yoichi alone in a shopping centre. Mai learns Yoichi has been mute since his father and grandfather’s deaths and his psychic abilities intensified. Returning to the hospital, Mai, Okazaki, and Detective Omuta observe Kawajiri’s experiment to exorcise the psychic energy from Masami by projecting her mental imagery onto a blank tape. However, it causes the cursed videotape’s imagery to appear and the horror of the first film begins all over again. You have to wait a long time for the scares – which aren’t terrifying it must be said – but the anticipation is enough. There are a couple of stand-out scenes that I absolutely love; one including disappearing mirrors and the other that takes place in a well. The videotape scenes are much better than the first also and they wisely try out new ideas rather than repeat anything. There is something refreshingly forensic about the sequel, making it a great mystery full of suspense and intrigue. The new and returning actors are all great and I also really loved the music. I personally think that Hideo Nakata’s direction in the second film is far greater than in the first, although I think I will always prefer the original film. Most horror franchises stumble in the second chapter, Ring however switches things around and produces something unexpected and solid.

Ring (Rungu)

Dir: Hideo Nakata

1998

*****

It’s fair to say that director Hideo Nakata changed the world of horror dramatically when he released his 1998 adaption of Kôji Suzuki’s novel Ring. The impact of the film was huge but its origins are easy to spot. The themes deal with folk-tale devils and simply mixes mythology within a contemporary situation. Suzuki was inspired by two things; the story of Chizuko Mifune 1982’s Poltergeist (although he clearly saw David Cronenberg's Videodrome)  Mifune was born in 1886 in Kumamoto Prefecture and was rumored to have the gift of foresight. After a demonstration in 1910, she was proclaimed a charlatan and committed suicide a year later by ingesting poison. It is essentially Mifune’s ghost that our protagonists are being haunted by. The story begins with two teenagers, Masami and Tomoko, who talk about a videotape recorded by a boy in Izu which is fabled to bear a curse that kills the viewer seven days after watching. Tomoko reveals that a week ago, she and three of her friends watched a weird tape and received a call after watching. Tomoko goes downstairs and witnesses her TV turn on by itself. She later hears startling noises and turns around, only to be killed by an unseen force. It’s a classic horror opener, highlighted by the film Scream that was released two years previous and every bit as compelling. We then follow Reiko Asakawa, a reporter investigating the popularity of the video curse who discovers that it was her niece Tomoko, along with her three other friends, who mysteriously died at the same time, on the same night, with their faces twisted in fear. She also discovers that Masami became insane from witnessing Tomoko's death and is institutionalised in a mental hospital. After stumbling upon Tomoko's photos from the past week, Reiko finds that the four teenagers stayed in a rental cabin in Izu. It all gets a bit ‘Evil Dead’ from there on in but with a certain X-Files vibe. It’s quite a slow-building film with many gaps between horror but it has an eerie quality that influenced many horror films that followed. However, the now infamous scene whereby the film’s evil spirit breaks down the wall between recording and reality is iconic. Sure, Pennywise did it eight year before to great effect and it has happened elsewhere in sci-fi many time over, but somehow Nakata made it his own and the most terrifying it had been. Many have speculated was Ring is about, with a majority agreeing that it is an exploration of contemporary anxieties, technology being the method in which the repressed past reasserts itself. It’s tradition vs technology, old Japan fighting against new. Others have suggested that it is about ambivalence about motherhood and the dangers that come from it – again, a bit of old world thinking. I think its just a neat idea, and not really original. The 90s saw the rise of home video to the high of its success. What is scarier than watching a video come to life and kill you while you are yourself watching a similarly themed video. It’s like that scene in Arachnophobia when the spider comes out of the popcorn – I’ve never heard screams like that come from a cinema, a brilliant and simple move. It is Ring’s simplicity that make it so clever, indeed, it was simplicity that saw a resurgence in modern horror rather than technology – technology making things simpler. The special effects are very simple too, Nakata being the first to develop the now overused method of filming backwards and forwarding the tapes during the editing process. I also think the found footage horror sub-genre owe a great deal to Ring. I’m not too sure what is so scary about long-haired Japanese women and pale Japanese boys that have seen them appear time and time again in such horror movies but somehow they become more frightening the more we see them. I found Hideo Nakata's Dark Water to be a more intriguing film and Takashi Shimizu's The Grudge far more terrifying but you have to give credit Ring for upping the game.