2020 - February
RANKING ALL FILMS:
01. Hidden (2005) 4/4
02. Bait (2019) 4/4
03. Dark Water (2002) 4/4
04. Joker (2019) 4/4
05. Ring (1998) 3.5/4
06. My Morning Laughter (2019) 3.5/4
07. Jojo Rabbit (2019) 3.5/4
08. The Curse (2005) 3/4
09. Marriage Story (2019) 3/4
10. The Curse (2000) 3/4
11. The Curse 2 (2000) 3/4
12. The Ring (2002) 2.5/4
13. The Grudge (2002) 2.5/4
14. The Grudge 2 (2003) 2.5/4
15. Ring 2 (1999) 2.5/4
16. One Missed Call (2003) 2/4
17. The Grudge (2004) 2/4
18. Ring 0: Birthday (2001) 2/4
19. The Grudge 2 (2006) 1.5/4
20. Spiral (1998) 1/4
21. The Ring Two (2005) 0.5/4
01. Hidden (2005) 4/4
02. Bait (2019) 4/4
03. Dark Water (2002) 4/4
04. Joker (2019) 4/4
05. Ring (1998) 3.5/4
06. My Morning Laughter (2019) 3.5/4
07. Jojo Rabbit (2019) 3.5/4
08. The Curse (2005) 3/4
09. Marriage Story (2019) 3/4
10. The Curse (2000) 3/4
11. The Curse 2 (2000) 3/4
12. The Ring (2002) 2.5/4
13. The Grudge (2002) 2.5/4
14. The Grudge 2 (2003) 2.5/4
15. Ring 2 (1999) 2.5/4
16. One Missed Call (2003) 2/4
17. The Grudge (2004) 2/4
18. Ring 0: Birthday (2001) 2/4
19. The Grudge 2 (2006) 1.5/4
20. Spiral (1998) 1/4
21. The Ring Two (2005) 0.5/4
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22 titles
- DirectorNoah BaumbachStarsAdam DriverScarlett JohanssonJulia GreerNoah Baumbach's incisive and compassionate look at a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.08-02-2020
3/4 - DirectorTaika WaititiStarsRoman Griffin DavisThomasin McKenzieScarlett JohanssonA young German boy in the Hitler Youth whose hero and imaginary friend is the country's dictator is shocked to discover that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home.09-02-2020
3.5/4 - DirectorMark JenkinStarsEdward RoweGiles KingChloe EndeanMartin is a fisherman without a boat, his brother Steven having re-purposed it as a tourist tripper. With their childhood home now a get-away for London money, Martin is displaced to the estate above the harbour.09-02-2020
4/4 - DirectorTodd PhillipsStarsJoaquin PhoenixRobert De NiroZazie BeetzDuring the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.09-02-2020
4/4 - DirectorMark JenkinStarsEdward RoweGiles KingChloe EndeanMartin is a fisherman without a boat, his brother Steven having re-purposed it as a tourist tripper. With their childhood home now a get-away for London money, Martin is displaced to the estate above the harbour.10-02-2020
- DirectorMarko DjordjevicStarsFilip DjuricIvana VukovicJasna DjuricicA drama with underlying humor about the shame and despair that 30 year old boy feels on his way to losing virginity.12-02-2020
3.5/4 - DirectorMichael HanekeStarsDaniel AuteuilJuliette BinocheMaurice BénichouA married couple is terrorized by a series of surveillance videotapes left on their front porch.21-02-2020
4/4 - DirectorTakashi ShimizuStarsMegumi OkinaMisaki ItôMisa UeharaA mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.22-02-2020
"The Grudge", the progenitor of a ludicrously prolific franchise currently numbering 10 feature films, 2 TV movies, and 2 shorts, begins, as most horror films do, with a prologue featuring an abandoned house, a creepy child, and an unsuspecting visitor. The unsuspecting visitor, in this case, is Rika (Megumi Okina), a professional carer, sent to check on an old woman living in the house. She finds her in a catatonic state, all alone in a filthy home. Upon inspecting the upstairs of the house and following a strange rattling sound (always a good idea), Rika finds a small child locked in a closet. Soon, though, a mysterious black smoke creature appears and kills the old woman as the child looks on calmly.
The film is unusually broken up in a series of short segments that interlock into a grander picture and the prologue is only one of these segments and even though it is shown first it actually occurs midway through the film's timeline. The segments are presented in a non-linear fashion as they go backwards and forwards in time, posing questions and then answering them. For instance, a mysterious appearance of a girl in an otherwise empty house is explained in a segment later on in the film, and the fates of leads in some segments are answered in segments directly preceding them, but to say "The Grudge" is difficult to follow or even demanding on the viewer would be wrong. All this bobbing and weaving through time is nothing more than a clever gimmick which does work to a certain degree in making the otherwise fairly predictable material seem more interesting than it really is.
The story itself focuses mainly on a house that is cursed after the violent murders of its previous inhabitants. Anyone who goes near the house, such as the police inspector who investigated the killings (Yoji Tanaka), a group of teenage girls who stayed there on a dare, or a family who bought the house after the murders, is soon killed in a gruesome manner by the vengeful ghost of the murder victim named Kayako (Takako Fuji). This is, of course, reminiscent of that other famous Japanese horror film "Ring", and like Sadako from that film, Kayako is a white-faced, contouring apparition with long black hair who pounces on its victims when they least expect it. Nothing new here either.
However, I found myself enjoying "The Grudge" more than I expected mainly because it never seemed to be afraid of being silly or going for the scare and there are several quite effective sequences within its otherwise patchy plot. Most effective are the ones in which Kayako features the least such as the surprisingly atmospheric segment focusing on the daughter (Misa Uehara) of the aforementioned policeman. Haunted by the recent disappearances of her three best friends with whom she spent an evening in the haunted house, she finds herself seeing their faces at her bedroom windows at night. However, as she'll soon find out, taping the windows over with newspapers won't help much. Also quite well done is the extended chase sequence in which Hitomi (Misaki Ito) tries to escape the ghostly apparitions following her through an office building only to meet her demise at home.
Much less successful are the scenes in which Kayako crabwalks down flights of stairs or in which the ghostly child appears out of nowhere behind people. The child is too cute to actually be scary and all the contorting has been seen so much since the days of "The Exorcist" it feels downright self-parodic nowadays. Also plaguing the film is a rampant disregard for logic and consistency. There are no rules binding this ghosts as they seem to be able to do whatever the director needs them to do at any given moment whether that is to haunt people who've never stepped foot into the haunted house or make people see into the future or even reanimate the dead. For that reason, the film feels like each segment was written separately only to be clumsily glued together at the last minute.
With all these flaws it is the good luck of this film that its director/writer Takashi Shimizu is quite adept at creating likeable characters and a chilling atmosphere with nothing more than some very well thought out and fluid camera moves and a superbly creepy score by Shiro Sato. It is this minimalist approach to horror characterised by long takes, very few jump scares, and the opportunity to soak in the thick atmosphere that impressed me the most about "The Grudge" and that ultimately made my viewing of it worth the time. So in conclusion, even though the payoffs are often quite disappointing, the build-up tends to be good enough to make "The Grudge" worth a watch for any horror hound out there.
2.5/4 - DirectorTakashi ShimizuStarsYûrei YanagiYueRyôta KoyamaA teacher visits the house of one of his students after the boy goes missing, only to have a horrifying excuse for his absence from school.22-02-2020
"The Curse" is the oft-overlooked original version of "The Grudge", the very popular Japanese horror film which spawned a massive franchise currently numbering 10 feature films, 2 TV movies, and 2 shorts. Its production history begins with Takashi Shimizu, the director/writer of "The Grudge" who, in 1998, made two very short horror films about people stalked by a contorting woman and a ghostly child respectively. These characters then became Kayako and her son Toshio, two vengeful ghosts brutally murdered by the jealous father of the family who now haunt their former house and kill anyone who steps foot into it. These characters, in their final form, debuted in Shimizu's feature-length debut "The Curse", an ultra-low-budget TV movie which was so successful it spawned its much more famous cinematic version. And yet, as is so often the case, the original is far better.
Like most of the "Grudge" films, "The Curse" is actually an omnibus of six horror segments each connected to each other. Unlike "The Grudge", however, these segments are presented in mostly the chronological order (bar one) and tell the tales of three groups of people doomed by the curse of Kayako. First up is Mr Kobayashi (Yurei Yanagi), little Toshio's teacher who goes to the haunted house after Toshio's missed a few days at school. Once there, he finds Toshio home alone just before he begins remembering his mother from his college days.
The next three segments all revolve around the Murakami family who buy the house after the murders. Each of the family members and the daughter's tutor (Hitomi Miwa) is dispatched in brutal and twisted ways as each of the segments unfold. The two aforementioned shorts made by Shimizu in 1998 reveal the fates of the family members whose deaths are not shown on screen. They are not pretty. The segment about the demise of the unfortunate tutor who is left alone in the haunted house as the ghosts begin to taunt her with sounds is easily the most effective of the segments within this film or its cinematic spin-off. The aspect I admired the most about "The Grudge", its minimalist approach to horror, is really highlighted in this segment as it is shot almost entirely in simple long takes and presented with no background music. The result is startlingly effective and when combined with the low-budget video quality of the image creates an intimate, disturbing atmosphere that makes you feel like you're watching true horror unfold before your eyes.
After each of the Murakami family members is dispatched to their untimely deaths we return to Mr Kobayashi, still in the haunted house with the undead Toshio. I won't spoil the finale of this segment but suffice to say it is as memorable as memorable gets and truly reflects the sadistic glee which Japanese horror films find in killing off the most vulnerable of targets. Also effective is the little epilogue revolving around a real estate salesman (Makoto Ashikawa) and his psychic sister (Yuko Daike). This segment proves it is not the gore or even the shock value that makes this film work but its atmosphere. There are no deaths in it, no jump scares, and no blood, and yet the disgusting atmosphere of imminent dread that permeates it will have you squirming in your seats.
When compared to "The Grudge" I can easily and without remorse say "The Curse" is the superior movie. Slow, subtle, and devastatingly creepy, it shows Shimizu at his atmosphere-building best. He also wisely avoids showing the vengeful ghost until the very end when she's revealed in a brief but terrifying scene. This is the much smarter and more effective approach than the one taken in "The Grudge" where Kayako was seen too often and became self-parodic with her contorting tricks and hateful eyes. I also enjoyed how Shimzu didn't bend over backwards to make all the stories neatly connect with each other but let each one play as its own short film which is only enrichened by the wider context. Less effective, however, are the performances which are often amateurish. They never succeed in taking us out of the carefully built atmosphere but they do put a dent in the overall impression. I can only shudder to imagine how more terrifying the Kayako reveal would have been if Yurei Yanagi could actually give a convincing reaction to her.
But nevermind, the fact still remains that "The Grudge" is merely a more ambitious retread of the more effective "The Curse". With its subtle scares, carefully built atmosphere, and quick, brutal payoffs, it puts its director Takashi Shimizu on par with any other horror master, even John Carpenter himself.
3/4 - DirectorTakashi ShimizuStarsYûrei YanagiTakako FujiTakashi MatsuyamaOn his request, the sensitive sister of a real estate agent visits a house he intends to sell, only to cross paths with its resident curse.22-02-2020
"The Curse 2" was made back-to-back with its excellent prequel "The Curse" as they were meant to be a single, 110-minute long film. However, it actually splits quite neatly in two as this sequel looks at the consequences of the events of part one.
The structure is the same, six horror vignettes connected by the fact that all of their protagonists are haunted by the vengeful ghosts of Kayako (Takako Fuji) and her son Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) who were murdered by the jealous father of the family shortly before the start of the first film. The style is also, thankfully, the same and just as effective with its slow-burn atmosphere, long takes, and spare use of music. In fact, I feel that the atmosphere in these vignettes is sometimes even more affecting than in those of "The Curse" mainly because "The Curse 2" possesses a mournful, downbeat quality which the first part lacked. More on that in a minute, however, I have to first address the fact that the first two segments of "The Curse 2" are in fact lifted directly from "The Curse". They are the last two segments from that film dealing with Toshio's teacher's (Yurei Yanagi) doomed visit to their newly haunted house and the brief epilogue from the first film featuring a real estate salesman (Makoto Ashikawa) and his psychic sister (Yuko Daike) who warns him against selling the house. Now, normally, I would consider such a retread cheap but considering this was originally meant to be a single film I can understand why director/writer Takashi Shimizu insisted on them being seen before the stories in "The Curse 2". Especially important is the segment with the salesman and his sister as their story is continued in the third segment of the film.
After his sister and his teenage son (Tomohiro Kaku) are stricken by the curse and become catatonic, the salesman (named Tatsuya, by the way) decides to look into the house's past and makes a visit to the family he sold the house in spite of his sister's warnings. The long, uncomfortable sequence in which Tatsuya slowly realises that the woman he is speaking to is not "quite alright" is superbly done. The creeping dread-laden sense of doom that we feel as we realise there is no way for Tatsuya to get out of the house alive is masterfully imposed upon us by Shimizu through stylistic methods I can only describe as Hanekeian. The low-fi image quality contributes to the sense of voyeurism and unease while the uncomfortable length of the shots and silences and the awkward dialogue between Tatsuya and the woman make the growing sense of unease almost unbearable.
The next segment carries over this quiet feeling of inevitable death as we follow two policemen tasked with investigating the deaths at the house. One is young and eager (Denden), the other old and reticent (Taro Suwa). While at first, we may admire the young man's enthusiasm, it turns out that the old man's fears were right and the shocking swerve in which everything, if you'll pardon the expression, goes to hell, is an effective forte in an otherwise quiet and slow-burn movie.
To describe the final two segments in any detail at all would mean spoiling them and I don't want to do that. Suffice to say they are short and terrifying announcements of the oncoming apocalypse. If that doesn't pique your interest, I don't know what will. They also serve as excellent reminders that Shimizu started out as a director of horror shorts and is quite adept at the form.
"The Curse 2" is nothing without "The Curse" and as such I wish someone would simply combine the two movies. But viewed as its natural continuation (if not quite a conclusion), it is just as effective, spooky, and thrilling as its predecessor. The slow-burn atmosphere really creeps up your spine, twitches your neck, and makes the hairs on your head stand up at attention, the shocking jumps will make you sweat, while the terrifying finale will make your blood run cold. I was quite impressed with these two ultra-low-budget films and the way their maker found around the budget limitation to create some truly memorable horror.
3/4 - DirectorTakashi ShimizuStarsNoriko SakaiChiharu NiiyamaKei HorieAs their curse spreads on, the ghosts find their chance to live once again through the pregnancy of a cursed woman.23-02-2020
"The Grudge 2" is the fourth instalment in Takashi Shimizu's never-ending franchise about a haunted house whose every visitor will end up being hunted down and killed by the ghosts of a mother and her son, Kayako (Takako Fuji) and Toshio (Yuya Ozeki). The franchise started off strong with the excellent low-budget TV movie "The Curse" but stumbled slightly when it transitioned to the big screen with the ultra-successful "The Grudge". When compared to its immediate predecessor, "The Grudge 2" is much the same with all the same issues and all the same strengths except that the plot of "The Grudge 2" is a lot more focused and, in the end, comes together much more neatly than that of the first film. But in these movies, the plot counts for little.
Like all "The Grudge" films, "The Grudge 2" consists of six segments, each focusing on the fate of one of the members of a TV crew which shot an ill-fated documentary in the haunted house. Each of the segments functions a bit like a short horror film each of which is a piece of an overreaching puzzle telling the story of the curse. I won't go into every segment but like in any such a movie, they range from very good to downright silly.
The one I enjoyed the most followed the TV reporter Tomoka (Chiharu Niiyama) who is plagued at night by a mysterious banging in her walls. She asks her boyfriend (Kei Horie) to come over and look. He does and finds nothing. The next night he comes over again, chats with his girlfriend for a bit and then gets a call. It's Tomoka telling him she'll be a little late. The resolution, whilst indeed corny, reminded me favourably of those old school ghost stories a la Algernon Blackwood or M.R. James. It doesn't quite make sense but it ties up into an interesting-looking bow. The one I enjoyed the least is a weird little bit of padding following Chiharu (Yui Ichikawa), a minor character from the previous film who is haunted by the ghosts in her dreams (*cough* Elm Street *cough*). There's a limp attempt from Shimizu to tie in this story with the rest of the film but this segment is obviously only here to pad out the runtime. It is neither scary nor particularly well done. I found it hard to follow and myself unwilling to try.
Other characters include Kyoko (Noriko Sakai), an actress with a mysterious pregnancy, Megumi (Emi Yamamoto), a psychic make-up artist, and the director Keisuke (Shingo Katsurayama) who tries to investigate the mysterious goings-on with much the same results as all the previous characters who tried to do so in the franchise.
Now, Takashi Shimizu is a talented horror director and he gets to flex his muscles here. The atmosphere is very well built and is even more notable due to the fact Shimizu manages to creep you out by using nothing more than long takes and sound effects. He is very skilled at this and, for instance, the scene in which Keisuke photocopies a mysterious diary he's found is incredibly uncomfortable because we keep expecting the ghosts to show up, a sense of expectation Shimizu keeps building on. The scene lasts three or so minutes and the tension keeps rising and rising. There are also some very well-executed fluid camera motions throughout the film which often make us wonder if the ghosts are observing the characters. A sense of paranoia which contributes to the overall atmosphere of dread. Less effective are the ghosts when they do eventually show up on the screen. The contorting Kayako is better used here than in "The Grudge" where she appeared a few too many times, but she's still overexposed and scarier when expected but not seen. Her white-painted son Toshio is still far too cute to be creepy and I, again, felt more like pinching those adorable baby cheeks of his than running away. Thankfully, Shimizu has done away with the ridiculous pitter-patter sound of his running feet which made me giggle so much in "The Grudge".
One aspect in which "The Grudge 2" fails when compared to its predecessors are the characters who are here not in the least likeable or relatable. Noriko Sakai, who is, I believe, supposed to be playing our main character, is a pretty poor actress and instead of emoting or even looking remotely interested in what is going on, merely stands on her mark and looks befuddled. The rest of the cast is abler but are given cyphers to play. Even Megumi, the psychic make-up artist, isn't nearly as quirky or likeable as the caregiver from the previous film, even though there was ample opportunity to make her so.
So, in retrospect, "The Grudge 2" is exactly on par with "The Grudge". A neat, entertaining little shocker with no more merit than that. It never bored or annoyed me but I doubt I'll remember any of it in a couple of days which is a shame because I do believe Takashi Shimizu to be a very talented horror director.
2.5/4 - DirectorTakashi ShimizuStarsSarah Michelle GellarJason BehrClea DuVallAn American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.23-02-2020
"The Grudge" is an oddity among remakes in that it was made by almost the same creative team as the original. It's directed by the same man, Takashi Shimizu and stars the same villains, Takako Fuji as the contorting vengeful ghost Kayako and Yuya Ozeki as her ghostly child Toshio haunting the house they were brutally murdered in by the father of the family and killing anyone who steps foot inside it. It is also the only foreign language remake I know of that is set in the same country as the original. In that sense, "The Grudge" can be seen less like a remake and more like a revisit of the same material by its creator looking to make it work for a different audience.
The target audience now is Americans and like most American horror films, the plot of "The Grudge" is much streamlined and simplified when compared to the Japanese original. However, that is not a bad thing at all. I found the original film often meandering and lacking in focus and I was frankly confused by its finale. Now, these blind alleys and confounding turns are gone and I enjoyed how screenwriter Stephen Susco made the story feel complete and tie together in the end in a way Shimizu never succeeded in the Japanese version of "The Grudge", its sequel or the two prequels.
For one, there is a lot less jumping back and forth in time. Whereas in the original pretty much every sequence was set in a separate timeline, we now follow only two. The first one concerns the Williams family who moves into the haunted house after the murders, the other Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a part-time carer who discovers their bodies while visiting Mr Williams' disabled mother (Grace Zabriskie).
All of the major setpieces in "The Grudge" are taken straight from the Japanese films. There's the girl whose jaw is ripped off from "The Curse", the haunted detective who tries to set fire to the house from "The Grudge", and the marvellous chase sequence in which a woman tries to escape Kayako in an office building only to meet her demise in the safety of her own home. So, in that sense, there's nothing new to be seen in this American version for the fans of the Japanese films. However, I did enjoy how all these segments were neatly tied up and how, for once in this franchise, I wasn't left confused in the end.
Also, a major improvement over the Japanese films is the presentation of the ghosts. I found that in the original "The Grudge" Kayako and Toshio failed to really scare me. Kayako was seen too often and she wasn't really that original or striking with her contorting tricks and long black hair. Toshio, on the other hand, was too cute a child to be scary. I kept wanting to pinch his baby cheeks rather than run away. But here, Kayako is seen sparingly and in quick flashes. She is more heard than seen in the similar fashion she was shown in her very first appearance in the very good TV movie "The Curse". Toshio, on the other hand, is shown a lot more but with the actor now older and less baby looking and without being accompanied by that ridiculous pitter-patter sound of his feet whenever he moved he is a lot scarier than before.
So far so good, but I do have to confess "The Grudge" fails to replicate something far more important to the original movie than either the plot or the villains and that's the atmosphere. The slow-burn, creeping chill of the original which Shimizu is so good at creating is missing here mainly because of the faster pace and lack of long, quiet takes. Following the trend of American horror films, there seems to be a cut (often unnecessary) every few seconds and Christopher Young's music is heard in almost every scene. While I normally enjoy Young's work here it seems oddly intrusive mainly because the long, uninterrupted silences worked so well in the original. Without this atmosphere, "The Grudge" suddenly becomes yet another in a long line of acceptable horror flicks with some impressive setpieces and OK storyline but lacking in true memorability. Sure, a lot of details are smoother and neater than in the original but the lack of its sombre mood makes this American revisit a lesser experience in horror.
2/4 - DirectorTakashi ShimizuStarsAmber TamblynEdison ChenArielle KebbelThree interwoven stories about a terrible curse. A young woman encounters a malevolent supernatural force while searching for her missing sister in Tokyo; a mean high school prank goes horribly wrong; a woman with a deadly secret moves into a Chicago apartment building.24-02-2020
In taking stock of my reactions to the long-running "The Grudge" series I can't help but notice that the films have steadily been getting worse and worse. The original ultra-low-budget TV movies, "The Curse" and "The Curse 2" I thought were actually quite admirable mostly in the way their director/writer Takashi Shimizu managed to generate a tangibly creepy atmosphere using nothing more than long takes, no music, and some clever sound effects. The silences, however, and the excruciating periods of expectation for the inevitable scare were the most effective aspect of these wonderfully unpretentious films. But as the silences got shorter and shorter, the scares lessened and logic in me kicked in. The Japanese cinematic spin-offs "The Grudge" and "The Grudge 2" suffered from overly ambitious plots looking to weave several plot threads together and failing miserably. "The Grudge", in particular, wound up becoming confusing and suffered from severe plot holes as it seemed that the titular grudge could do anything it wanted, or rather what Shimizu wanted. "The Grudge 2" was more consistent in this regard but suffered from overexposure of its villains who when fully seen aren't as scary as when only hinted at. Still, the atmosphere was still there as well as some truly inventive scares (the ghost under the bedsheet, in particular, was startlingly effective), so I gave them a pass for logical fallacies. The American remake "The Grudge" fixed most of the plot problems and actually did a good job of weaving various plot threads together, but the atmosphere just wasn't there. Pressured by the producers, I suppose, to put in a lot more jump scares, fake-outs, and impose a faster pace, Shimizu failed at generating his trademark dread in this polished but generic remake.
Now comes "The Grudge 2" and it is, consistently, the weakest in the series. It carries over all the problems of its predecessor and none of its virtues. To begin with, the atmosphere just isn't there and "The Grudge 2" is not scary. This is its biggest flaw. Some of the ideas within it are interesting (such as a girl being killed by a reflection in the mirror) but their execution is too rushed and obvious that the only emotion they conjure up is that of sadness for how good these scenes could have been. Also problematic is screenwriter Stephen Susco's desire to cram not two, but three entirely different plotlines into this 100-minute film. Sure, the plotlines eventually stumble upon each other and clumsily weave together, but for more than 90% of the film, they feel more like three completely different films which we keep cutting between. This hopping between timelines and places creates serious issues with both pacing and tone as these vary wildly across the three plots. Also, any attempt from Shimizu to generate mystery or interest from the viewers is foiled when he keeps cutting away from each of the stories just when they seem about to get interesting.
The first plotline follows on directly from the previous film as its protagonist Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is now locked up in a mental institution ranting and raving about haunted houses and vengeful ghosts who kill anyone who ventures there. Of course, no one but the audience believes her and her loving mother (Joanna Cassidy) sends her younger sister Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) to bring her home. However, upon Aubrey's arrival, Karen is unceremoniously dispatched with in a manner unfortunately similar to Jamie Lee Curtis' demise in "Halloween: Resurrection" and Aubrey is plunged into the mystery of the house with some guy called Eason (Edison Chen). This plotline actually works the best as it is given the most space in the film, but the biggest problem with it is that we already know all the answers to the questions Aubrey's posing. Thus, this entire plotline boils down to watching Aubrey, likeable only due to a fine performance from Tamblyn, do exactly the same things we saw Karen do in the previous film. As a retread of a retread, this plotline is a polished bore.
The second plotline is the most promising one and begins with Trish (Jennifer Beals) murdering her nagging husband Bill (Christopher Cousins) by pouring boiling oil over his head and then finishing him off with a frying pan to the head. She then sits down and finishes her tea. We then flashback a few weeks and watch as Trish and Bill, happily in love, move into their new Chicago apartment with Bill's children Jake (Matthew Knight) and Lacey (Sarah Roemer). Everything is fine and dandy until one night Jake witnesses the next-door neighbours usher in a mysterious hooded figure into their apartment as the ghostly little boy Toshio (Oga Tanaka) watches on. Had "The Grudge 2" featured only this plotline, I am sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more, but with more and more time being given to Aubrey's plotline, it develops in patchy segments often skipping over huge amounts of time. Also, a revelation in the third plotline completely spoils the mystery behind the hooded figure in the apartment next door. This is unfortunate because the best scenes in the film come from this plotline including the aforementioned opening scene. It also manages to turn a girl drinking milk into a hauntingly creepy image which I applaud Mr Shimizu for.
The third plotline is awkwardly sandwiched between the other two and follows the fates of three schoolgirls who dare enter the haunted house. It is given very little space and consists mainly of three horror setpieces only one of which (the aforementioned mirror kill) works. Of the other two, one is a complete cliche and the other one is so badly executed I could have sworn it was a clip from a "Scary Movie".
On the whole, "The Grudge 2" feels disconnected, unfocused, and frankly boring. It lacks scares, atmosphere, and any sensible plot or character development. Somewhere in there, there's a decent enough horror film but it is buried by so much excess and bad filmmaking you'd have to work hard to find it. This is also the final "Grudge" film which Takashi Shimizu directed and the last one starring Takako Fuji as the contorting vengeful ghost Kayako. Both of them were involved in every film of the franchise from its very beginning. If they can quit, so can I. This is the last "Grudge" film I will watch.
1.5/4 - DirectorHideo NakataStarsNanako MatsushimaMiki NakataniYûko TakeuchiA reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.24-02-2020
Everybody knows the plot of "Ring". It is one of the most iconic, if not the most iconic horror set-up of all time. The killer videotape. You see it, you get a phone call, and in seven days, you're dead. And while the storyline originated in Koji Suzuki's 1991 novel, it is Hideo Nakata's 1998 film which can be credited with popularising not only the concept but also the entire subgenre of Japanese horror which reigned supreme for almost a full decade producing many successful horror films such as "One Missed Call", "The Grudge", and "Dark Water". All of those three, "Ring" and several others received Hollywood remakes with wildly varying results, but one thing is indisputable, "Ring" was a film so effective it can be said it gave birth to an international cinematic sensation.
Revisiting Nakata's film I was struck by how expertly constructed it is. Focusing tightly on journalist Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) and her ex-husband Ryuji's (Hiroyuki Sanada) investigation into the videotape to save their son Yoichi (Rikiya Ôtaka) who's seen it, almost every scene in the film furthers the plot or brings a new twist. Like a well-oiled clockwork, "Ring" ticks away at a steady, even-tempered pace towards its chilling climax. It is a masterclass in plot construction and economic storytelling though sometimes at the price of absolute believability. That is not to say that it doesn't allow for character development or quiet moments. For instance, the relationship between Reiko and Ryuji is wonderfully and carefully built, but Nakata never stops the plot for it to do so. Rather, he sprinkles clues throughout the film in seemingly throwaway lines, small reactions, gestures, and looks. Matsushima and Sanada are terrific at this game and find nuances even in the exposition dialogue.
The film is also undoubtedly unnerving. It seems redundant to say so but to praise "Ring" without mentioning its atmosphere and some of its world-famous scenes would be impossible. A cold, mournful feeling of dread permeates through the film largely due to the excellent cinematography from Jun'ichirô Hayashi. Harshly lit sets and distant, motionless camera shots, give "Ring" a sense of objectivity which is terrifying. Making you feel as if the events unfolding on-screen are something you're really seeing or perhaps a suppressed memory. Also spookily effective is Kenji Kawai's score which successfully meshes techno music and horror stings with subtle and beautiful string cues. Hiroshi Takahashi's screenplay is like I mentioned earlier a masterclass in storytelling and by focusing so tightly on the story of two characters as they follow one clue to the next, it allows us to identify with them as we become engulfed in the mystery of the killer videotape.
Of course, what everyone remembers about "Ring" is the creepy ghost girl with long black hair coming out of a TV, but these kinds of melodramatic set pieces are few and far between. Hideo Nakata builds the tension and atmosphere in "Ring" mainly by contrasting its aforementioned objectivity and realism with swift and shocking revelations like the brief but horrifically effective revelation of Yoichi watching the tape. Also strangely effective are the on-screen titles telling us the date. This seemingly superfluous detail keeps upping the ante and reminding us that the clock is ticking for our characters. When something as simple as the date in a movie can make your heart skip a beat
that must mean something.
Now, "Ring" is not perfect. Like I mentioned before it sacrifices believability for the sake of efficiency and coincidences seem to occur at every step of the plot. Reiko and Ryuji seem to always stumble exactly on the people they want to talk to and always know to ask the right questions to get the answers they need. And the one time they aren't able to make someone tell them what they want to know, it is suddenly revealed Ryuji is psychic and can simply extract the knowledge from within that person's mind. Also, like many of these modern Japanese horror films, "Ring" has no real subtext or deeper meaning, psychological or otherwise. It is not meant to be satirical or ironic in any way which is perhaps something to admire it for, but it does mean that it is little else besides an admirably constructed genre piece.
But what a genre piece it is. With its finely tuned pace, intriguing plot, stunningly economical storytelling, and some truly terrifying imagery, Japanese horror doesn't get better than "Ring" even if it won't win any fans among the more philosophically inclined horror fans. It got under my skin more than almost any other horror film I can presently think of (with the possible exception of "Hereditary") and did so without jumpscares or gore. No, it is the slow, quiet realisation of the tragic events behind "Ring's" central mystery that makes it so disquieting. A sense of rage born out of misery leading to certain doom.
3.5/4 - DirectorJôji IidaStarsKôichi SatôMiki NakataniHinako SaekiA young pathologist seeks answers to the mysterious death of a friend and soon comes into contact with the same cursed videotape that caused the death of the friend's wife and son, which is haunted by the curse of Sadako, a relentless spirit.25-02-2020
It is a little known fact two Koji Suzuki novels received cinematic adaptations in 1997. One was "Ring", Hideo Nakata's cinematic sensation which gave birth to the worldwide Japanese horror trend. The other one was "Spiral", Joji Iida's adaptation of the second novel in the Sadako trilogy (the third one, "Loop" remains unadapted). This fact is not a coincidence as "Ring" and "Spiral" were meant to be viewed as companion films. They were shot back-to-back, released in cinemas on the same day, and share several cast members for the purpose of telling the whole Sadako story. However, the two films were directed and written by different people ("Ring" was written by Hiroshi Takahashi and directed by Hideo Nakata, whilst "Spiral" was directed and written by Joji Iida) and are so wildly different in their approach and style that it is hard to see them as the companion movies they were intended to be. "Ring" became a horror masterpiece, notable for its unnerving atmosphere and economical storytelling, while "Spiral" is more of a medical thriller cum character drama.
The point of divergence between the two films is their faithfulness to the source material. Unlike the supernatural mystery that Nakata's "Ring" is, the Koji Suzuki novels were a strange blend of science fiction, medical thriller, and ghost story in which Sadako, the ghost, was reborn by spreading a smallpox-like virus through a videotape created through some form of ESP. I can only guess as to why Nakata and Takahashi decided to remove these aspects of the novels, but "Ring" was all the better for it. Boiling it down to a barebones ghost story made that film as effective as it is and "Spiral" is perhaps the best proof of that. Joji Iida took a far more faithful approach to Suzuki's novels and produced a muddled, silly, dull movie with an overly complicated plot revolving around genetics, viruses, and some sort of supernatural mumbo-jumbo all mixed together in the style of a cheap Michael Crichton knock-off.
"Spiral" revolves around Ando (Kôichi Satô), a pathologist who examines the body of his old friend Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) who died after seeing the videotape. He discovers Ryuji had developed a mysterious cancer in his throat which is then somehow linked to a mutated form of the smallpox virus. Meanwhile, Ando engages in a love affair with Ryuji's girlfriend Mai (Miki Nakatani), who is arbitrarily revealed to be psychic all while he mourns the tragic death of his young son whom he can't stop dreaming about.
If this plot outline sounds sparse, that is because the film doesn't really have much of a plot. In fact, so little happens in "Spiral" that it might as well have been a short film. The entire smallpox subplot, as ludicrous as it is, takes up less than a third of the film and most of it is wasted on shots of Ando looking down a microscope or interviewing people with mild coughs. Most of the film's runtime is spent on character development which is unusual and commendable in a Japanese horror film but is so clumsily and laughably executed in this film that I became nostalgic for the bland characters of "The Grudge" series.
What constitutes character development in this film are endless monologues by Ando on the tragedy of his son's death, awkward heart-to-heart dialogues between Ando and his dead friend's girlfriend, and bizarre dream sequences which further neither the plot nor our understanding of the characters. Most infuriatingly, however, after spending so much time on building up Ando's character, Iida seems to always have him do the exact opposite of what he should logically be doing. In other words, characters change between scenes for no good reason other than the fact that they have to do certain things in order to further the plot. For instance, there's a scene in the first third of the film in which a journalist (Yutaka Matsushige) tries to convince Ando that Ryuki's death was caused by a videotape. Ando will have none of it and even openly mocks the journalist. He then views the tape and the very next scene is Ando furiously ranting on and on about the killer videotape whilst the journalist is now the one mocking Ando. What motivated this change in Ando? The videotape in itself is not that convincing and although he did have a vision of Sadako's death, I find it hard he would simply accept the journalist's story based on nothing more than a bad dream. The journalist, however, doesn't even get that much of a motivation. He changes from trying to convince Ando of the killer videotape story to scoffing at the idea literally in the very next scene without any reason to do so.
The biggest subplot of the film is the relationship between Ando and Mai, Ryuji's girlfriend which completely baffles me even as I write this. The two characters have zero chemistry together and spend less than a few scenes in each other's company before having sex. They also don't previously ever appear to particularly like each other and are both at the moment preoccupied with their own tragedies. Ryuji with his son's death and Mai with the fact she's discovered the body of (by her own admission) the only man she ever loved mere days before. What drives them to fall for each other besides plot necessity I don't know.
I've never read Koji Suzuki's novel and I don't know if these problems are inherent within it but this still wouldn't excuse Joji Iida's awful screenplay. Besides the problematic characterizations and lack of plot development, the film also features some of the clunkiest dialogue I've ever heard. Besides long expository speeches which occur every twenty or so minutes in this film, there are numerous occurrences of characters simply repeating each other's words verbatim. "They're saying it's Sudden Death Syndrome," says one, "They're saying it's Sudden Death Syndrome," asks the other. Another bit of dialogue goes like this: "There's a way to save yourself," says one man. The other asks: "There's a way to save myself?" And finally, "She helped the virus in its proliferation," says one character. The other asks, you guessed it, "She helped the virus in its proliferation?" This annoying quirk is never explained and really cements the amateurishness of the screenplay which is already talky beyond my patience. It even ends with an almost 5-minute monologue. Quite a climax, ey?
As a director, Iida is not much to write about. He has an OK grasp of basic rules of filmmaking and his work is not as amateurish as his writing, but he has no stylistic flourish nor any feeling for tension or atmosphere. For that reason, "Spiral" simply doesn't work as a horror movie. There are no scary scenes within it nor is there a sense of anything remotely creepy going on. The film's tone is flat and distinctly televisual with Iida simply showing us what's going on without ever suggesting there's something more sinister at work there. The pacing, however, is the most problematic aspect of the film. At 100-minutes it is simply too long and moves at a glacial pace. Nothing really of any interest occurs until more than a halfway through and its few plot points are spread out at such a distance you can actually feel the time pass in the emptiness between them. Although only a few minutes longer than "Ring", the experience of watching "Spiral" makes it feel like its twice its predecessor's length.
And finally, I must note just how bad the acting in this film is. Perhaps this is another sin to lay at Iida's feet, but the actors, leading man Sato especially, seem to equate emoting with shouting and spend the entire film shifting between flat delivery of exposition and shouting out emotional confessions. They cry, fall to their knees, hit the walls, and shout, shout, shout like they're starring in some sort of a torrid telenovela. The result is baffling and laughable and (again) smacks of amateurism.
But what of Sadako, the creepy white ghost girl who crawls out of TVs, I hear you ask. Well, she's in there somewhere, but this Sadako bears almost no resemblance to the Sadako we all know and fear. This Sadako doesn't crawl out of TVs (we can thank Nakata and Takahashi for that one). She appears in our protagonists' dreams and has sex with them (I'm not joking). She also reanimates the dead, possesses people, and falls in love with Ando. She's about as far removed from the mysterious villain of "Ring" as possible and not in the least bit scary.
"Spiral" was a flop upon its original release and was thankfully quickly forgotten. A year later, "Ring 2" was made as a direct sequel to "Ring" and "Spiral" was officially removed from the Sadako cinematic cannon. And with good reason. It is a dull, slow, boring movie which doesn't have a single scary scene or idea within it. It is also full of amateurish writing, over-the-top performances, and contains almost no plot to speak of. "Spiral" is all in all about as much of a cinematic flop as you can imagine.
1/4 - DirectorHideo NakataStarsMiki NakataniHitomi SatôKyôko FukadaReiko takes Yôichi into hiding when her son begins to display frightening powers. Meanwhile, Mai Takano and the authorities begin a desperate search for them, as the mysterious Ring curse spreads.25-02-2020
It is hard to believe that in the space of two years, Hideo Nakata's superb "Ring" got two sequels. True, the first one, Joji Iida's "Spiral", was made and released simultaneously with the original, but it is still a very unusual case. "Ring 2's" production history begins after Iida's glacial, boring medical drama failed to connect with viewers or critics and the creators of the much more popular first film, "Ring", director Hideo Nakata and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi were recruited to make a sequel which would ignore "Spiral" and be more like "Ring". In other words, "Ring 2" was rushed into production with the purpose of erasing "Spiral" out of the minds of those unfortunate enough to see it and rescuing the potentially lucrative Sadako franchise. Thankfully, it worked and even though I'm still miffed about sitting through the entirety of "Spiral", my fate in the "Ring" franchise has been restored.
Unlike "Spiral", "Ring 2" is a busy little film and it is a credit to the winning Nakata/Takahashi duo that it never becomes hard-to-follow or feel choppy. The first half of the film features new characters such as a curious journalist (Yûrei Yanagi) and a tough cop (Kenjirô Ishimaru) investigating the recent spate of deaths connected to a mysterious videotape. At the same time, Dr Kawajiri (Fumiyo Kohinata), a parapsychologist, is conducting tests on a girl (Hitomi Satô) driven insane after seeing her best friend get killed after seeing the tape. Kawajiri is hoping to prove it is fear and not ghosts that is killing those who see the tape but his experiments threaten to unleash something even he can't imagine. Tieing all of these plots together is Mai (Miki Nakatani), the girlfriend of one of the two leads from the previous film. After finding her boyfriend dead in his apartment, she too becomes interested in the mystery of the tape. In order to uncover it, though, she needs help from Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), the friendly journalist from "Ring" who holds all the answers. Unfortunately, Reiko has disappeared with her young son Yoichi (Rikiya Ôtaka).
This first half of the film retreads a lot of the same ground the first film did, I suppose in the hopes of catching up those viewers who haven't seen it yet. But this is an exercise in futility because all these subplots will only confuse those who aren't already familiar with the "Ring" story. For those of us who have seen the original, logically this should be a drag, but for some reason, these sequences really worked for me. I became invested in the characters, interested in the new ideas brought forward by the plotlines (especially the parapsychology stuff) and followed eagerly as new twists and turns began emerging. Why is this? I'm not sure myself. Like I said, logically, this film shouldn't work at all. It is too busy and repeats its predecessor too often, but again I have to say I believe the answer to its success is the talented people behind it. My hat's off to Takahashi for managing to juggle all of these plotlines with ease, giving each of them enough space to develop and become interesting and to Nakata for imposing a perfectly measured pace upon the film. Once again he manages to carefully construct a film, making every scene, every line count. It moves like clockwork and even though, unlike "Ring", it occasionally goes down some blind alleys, Nakata never lets it linger or fall. He is a master of pacing.
The second half is far more original and follows Mai, Yoichi, and Dr Kawajiri's attempt at exorcising Sadako. They travel to the island where she lived and attempt an unusual ceremony involving a large pool, a TV set, and headgear resembling those virtual sex machines from "Demolition Man". I won't go into specifics because I'm not sure I understood all of it myself, but I found it very compelling indeed. This second half delves into a lot more conventional horror fare with flickering lights, mysterious apparitions, and mad scientists, but still, Nakata's pacing and Takahashi's writing find a way for it to work. I also must commend Miki Nakatani who proves herself a much more likeable and relatable lead than in "Spiral", as well as Fumiyo Kohinata whose uncomfortably enthusiastic parapsychologist is probably my favourite character in the entire "Ring" franchise. Also excellent is Yôichi Numata, returning to his role as Sadako's cousin haunted by guilt and blaming himself for her tragic death. Numata's time-wearied face and distant look in the eyes really sell this potentially cliched role.
"Ring 2" really surprised me in that it managed to juggle so many subplots without ever losing steam or having tonal issues. It is consistently entertaining and engrossing throughout. However, it does have its problems which keep mounting throughout the film. None of them really seriously hindered my enjoyment of it, but they have to be mentioned. First of all, there's the increasing problem of logical fallacies. In other words, the plot barely makes sense. This is a problem not rare in Japanese horror films and "Ring 2" is not the worst offender but I have to say I really struggled with understanding the film's finale. Of course, I won't go into the specifics of it, but it gives us some sort of metaphysical happy end which I truly struggled to grasp the implications of. Also troubling is the fact that as a sequel it brings nothing new to our understanding of the original. Sure, it introduces a lot of interesting aspects such as the scientific study of ESP but it does nothing with it and it doesn't reveal any new facts about the background of the curse or how to deal with it. In other words, it simply retreads plot points from the previous film.
Its biggest flaw, however, is that it simply isn't scary. "Ring's" best attribute was its spooky, sombre atmosphere which slowly got under your skin until you were profoundly uneasy but also unable to look away. "Ring 2" lacks the scares or the chills. It is consistently interesting and thrilling, but it is never scary. Sadako barely appears in it and when she does, she doesn't do anything remotely threatening. We never get a feeling that any of our protagonists are in any real danger until the very end and as we already know everything there is to know about the curse we're not that spooked by it ourselves. It is "Ring 2's" biggest stumbling block.
However, overall I really enjoyed this sequel a lot more than I hoped. It is not perfect and it is not scary, but there are a lot of good ideas in it and it's never boring and always exciting. I'm sure I'll forget most of it in a week but I'd also not be so sad to see it again sometime. It is a fine testament to the abilities of Hideo Nakata and Hiroshi Takahashi.
2.5/4 - DirectorNorio TsurutaStarsYukie NakamaSeiichi TanabeKumiko AsôIn this prequel to Ring, a young Sadako becomes an actress in hopes of escaping her troubled past. But strange visions and terrifying powers begin to manifest...26-02-2020
The "Ring" series had in the span of three years (1998 to 2000) had four such varied instalments that there is no combination of adjectives that could possibly describe them all. Hideo Nakata's "Ring" was an unsettling, atmospheric supernatural mystery, whereas Joji Iida's "Spiral" was a psychological drama with occasional forrays into sci-fi, and when Hideo Nakata returned to the series he gave the fast-paced techno-thriller that is "Ring 2". Now Norio Tsuruta takes the directing reigns and delivers the most unusual of all the "Ring" films.
"Ring 0" is, believe it or not, a prequel showing us the teenage years of the series big bad, Sadako Yamamura, i.e. the girl in white who crawls out of people's TVs. It is a relatively gentle "Carrie" rip-off in which young Sadako (Yukie Nakama), a sweet and painfully shy girl finds solace by starring in a local theatre group's production of "Eyes Without a Face". Then, with about thirty minutes of the film left, Tsuruta seems to remember he's supposed to be making a horror film and a series of baffling events occur which I can only suppose were meant to be scary.
But, don't let me get ahead of myself. When the film begins we find Sadako in the role of an assistant at the theatre group. She is largely ignored by the rest of the troupe except for the young Toyama (Seiichi Tanabe) who seems to have a crush on Sadako. But unbeknownst to the rest of the troupe, Sadako is a talented and passionate actress, a talent she gets to show off after the star of the play mysteriously dies and Sadako is picked to take her place. Sadly, the deaths don't stop and after a variety of other, mysterious events take place in the theatre, the troupe becomes suspicious and untrusting of Sadako.
Meanwhile, Miyaji (Yoshiko Tanaka), a pernicious journalist is digging into Sadako's past. She travels to the island where she was born, interviews her school teacher, and tracks down a recording of when her mother Shizuko (Masako) was publically humiliated by a reporter who then promptly dropped dead. At that point on the tape, an otherworldly screeching sound is heard, the same sound heard on the tape of the play's star's death.
The first problem which comes to mind in regards to "Ring 0" is to do with the fact that it comes fourth in a series of films. Namely, all the secrets and mysteries the characters in it are trying to solve have already been partially or fully explained. If we've seen "Ring", we already know Sadako killed the reporter and exactly what happened to her mother. If we've seen "Ring 2" we've already heard about her mysterious obsession with water, and if we've seen any one of the "Ring" films, we already know how this one will turn out. Now, the filmmakers do try to solve this problem by introducing a twist in the third act which although potentially very interesting, remains completely unexplained and unexplored. It also does little to placate the fact that the Miyaji character spends half the character retreading the same ground we've already covered in three previous films. I will not be shocked by pictures of Sadako's victims with blurred faces for the fourth time, you know.
But the biggest problem with "Ring 0" is not that. It is the fact that this film displays a complete lack of impetus. There is nothing to thrust the plot forwards, no immediate threat to Sadako until the very end of the film, and no energy behind it. It is a curiously sedate film which doesn't get its inciting incident until well over two-thirds of its runtime have passed. Until that moment it sort of languishes as it switches between endless scenes of the theatre troupe arguing or Sadako and Toyama crushing on each other but doing nothing about it and Miyaji recapping everything we already know from the previous films. Add to that a complete lack of scares and you get a film which looks like a mediocre attempt at a drama that someone's just slapped the "Ring" title on.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think "Ring 0" is a bad film, it just never gets started. The directing by Norio Tsuruta is capable and, at times, even interesting. I enjoyed the dreamlike death scene of the first actress. It is also well shot by Takahide Shibanushi, who wisely avoids a sepia-toned reconstruction of the 1950s and has an eery score by Shinichiro Ogata. Shame though it never really goes anywhere.
For that, I blame the fact that the film is based on a short story. And "Ring 0" could have made a fascinating 20-minute short, but here you can almost feel the padding as screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi struggles to find ways to extend what is in essence only a few scenes worth of plot into a feature-length movie.
I also struggled to believe in the characters. For a film which gives its characters so much space, they are all curiously one dimensional. Sadako is, in every single scene, nothing more than a shy ingenue. A kind of do-gooder angel trapped in a bad situation and haunted by a mysterious evil. She's so nice and loving that she resembles more a little girl from a cartoon than a human being. The same goes for Toyama, who is always the goody-two-shoes saviour, all of the actors in the acting troupe who might as well be the same conceited, sarcastic character, and the play's director who is about as ludicrous a caricature of the nasty, pretentious artist as I've ever seen. This is not a criticism of the actors, who try their best, but it is impossible to create believable people out of characters who don't have an ounce of grey in them.
To be perfectly honest, "Ring 0" had me hooked for a while. Not because anything interesting was going on, but because it seemed to be trying something new. It was also well made and featured a good starring turn from Yukie Nakama, but it lost me around the halfway mark when I finally realised it wasn't really going anywhere. There was no plot to become interested in, the pace was crushingly slow, and as much as they tried to convince us that Sadako is some kind of a profound tragic heroine, "Ring 0" turns out to be just another shallow cash-in. By the time anything at all happens, I was already tuned out and deciding firmly never to watch another "Ring" film again.
2/4 - DirectorGore VerbinskiStarsNaomi WattsMartin HendersonBrian CoxA journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone one week to the day after they view it.27-02-2020
Gore Verbinski's 2002 remake of Hideo Namaka's classic horror film "Ring" exists firmly in the shadow of its superb original. And even though it is one of the better American remakes of foreign horror films it falls into the same trappings as the others, namely adding numerous unnecessary plot points to a film which worked perfectly as it was. Unusually though, these plot points are not your typical badly thought out additions for additions sake, they do actually try to flesh out the characters and the plot, but what screenwriter Ehren Kruger and director Gore Verbinski seem to have failed to realise was that Nakata's film worked because of its starkness, a kind of natural sheen of normalcy which gave the film its horrifyingly realistic atmosphere and made you feel like the events unfolding before your eyes were really happening.
The plot is largely faithfully followed and revolves around a journalist, now named Rachel (Naomi Watts), who with the help of her ex, now named Ethan (Martin Henderson), investigates the mysterious deaths of a group of teens who all died of apparent heart failure at the exact same moment. Their investigation leads them to a videotape whose viewers are said to die seven days after they watch it.
Between the similar plot points, however, a lot has been added and annoyingly many details which were only hinted at in the original are now explicitly dealt with. This is obvious from the very videotape which in the original is a spooky collage of unusual images and screeching noises. Nothing in it is outright horrifying but the accumulative effect of these images is what gives it its unsettling nature. In this remake, the videotape is a collage of cliche horror shots immediately underlying its threatening nature. There are images of severed fingers, worms, chairs spinning by themselves etc. etc. Another thing explicitly "horrorfied" are the sets. I know this may sound silly but it is very symptomatic of everything wrong with this remake. In the original, for instance, the cottage in which the journalist finds the videotape is just your regular, white walls, cream sofa kind of place. Nothing special about it, which is, what to me, made that scene even creepier. If the set looks like it could be any house it leads you to subconsciously assuming it could even be your house. In the remake, however, the cottage is about as stock horror as it gets with its damp-ridden walls, collapsing roof, and creaking floorboards. It is such an obvious horror set it revealed the world of the film not to be our world and gave me the release of "oh, it's only a movie" which makes the film automatically much less frightening. With the sets, also "horrorified" is the cinematography by Bojan Bazelli. Unlike the original, which used a very natural colour scheme and flat lighting to give the film an almost gritty look, Bazelli relies on shadows and green tinting to make the film scary but instead it just makes it look artificial. The only aspect of the film not arbitrarily "horrorified" is the excellent music, a subdued orchestral score so unusual for its composer, the famed Hans Zimmer.
Also needlessly explicit is the relationship between Rachel and Noah. In the original, the couple's problems were left unsaid and all their emotional turmoil expressed entirely in looks, gestures, and colours given to lines by the excellent actors. Here, they're given the usual "where we went wrong" dialogue and every scene between them seems to contain some kind of half-veiled reference to their past.
Finally, there's a series of additions of stock horror scenes which further took me out of the film. There's a scene in which a horse goes wild because of the "presence of evil" near him, an obligatory dream sequence which doesn't further the plot, and Rachel's creepy son Aidan (David Dorfman) who possesses some kind of psychic abilities never explained in the film. Weak stuff really.
OK. So we've established that in comparison with Hideo Nakata's original "The Ring" fades. But, how does it work as a standalone movie? Well, somewhat better. All the problems I outlined above still stand but are much less jarring if you accept that Gore Verbinski is not trying to emulate the deeply unnerving atmosphere of the original but is instead going for something a lot more conventional. The story is well told, the characters nicely rounded and likeable, and the film is certainly never boring. I also enjoyed the work of its stars Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson who are instrumental in making us care about this film.
But, we can't pretend "The Ring" exists in a bubble. It is a remake of a brilliant horror film and seen with that context in mind it is a cheapened, more obvious and predictable copy. Should you see it? Well, if it sounds interesting to you, sure, it is by no means a terrible movie. But I see no reason for it to exist. It doesn't improve on the original in any way, it doesn't bring any new ideas to the table, and it is in no way original or exciting. It is merely a translation of the original for those too lazy to read the subtitles and all the changes it makes to it aren't better. Just different.
2.5/4 - DirectorHideo NakataStarsNaomi WattsDavid DorfmanSissy Spacek6 months after the incidents involving the lethal videotape, new clues prove that there is a new evil lurking in the darkness.27-02-2020
There are a lot of potentially interesting ideas sprinkled throughout the first act of "The Ring Two". First, I love its setting. A small town where the first movie's heroine Rachel (Naomi Watts) has moved to with her son Aidan (David Dorfman) to escape... something. I'm not sure, but nevermind. I thought, at first, that the film would deal with the killer videotape making its rounds through this small, sequestered community, turning neighbours on neighbours, killing the kindly people next door. This would also provide ample ground for some nice satire on suburbia which is always fun.
Another fascinating idea put forward in this film's first scene (and explored in a little bit more depth in a promotional short "Rings" which preceded this film) is the notion of a secret club created by teenagers who watch the tape and then compete to see who can last the longest before showing the tape to someone else and thus "uncursing" himself. This bizarre form of Russian Roulette is as good and original a take on the now already tired "Ring" franchise as I've ever heard.
But "The Ring Two" instead takes a route as uninteresting and uninspired as its lame title. It quickly degenerates into a blatant and boring "Exorcist" rip-off as the ghost girl Samara (Kelly Stables) decides to possess Aidan in order to... do something. Who cares? The rest of the film then follows Rachel as she follows one clue to the next in order to find out how to defeat Samara and regain her child.
I cannot explain to you how boring and uninteresting "The Ring Two" truly is. Moving from one scene to the next with no energy or drive, it seems to be more a collection of situations and reveals than a cohesive plot. Rachel, in her supposedly frantic search for answers, visits Samara's birth house, an asylum, an adoption agency, and gets attacked by deer in a scene so poorly executed and dumb it is almost entertaining. Each of these sequences seems to have its own tone and pace and they fail to connect into a sensible whole. Not to mention the fact that for a woman in a race against time to save her dying son, Rachel unhurriedly takes on a cross-country tour. But since it seems to take her no less than a few hours to visit all these places, I guess it's OK.
I suppose the first person to blame for these failures is screenwriter Ehren Kruger. His plot doesn't move. It seems silly, but a certain kind of status quo is imposed the moment we find out Aidan is possessed which doesn't really change at all until the very end. There is nothing to up the stakes, make hurdles for Rachel to jump, nor provide excitement for the audience. He also fails to find any new twists to give this story and simply rehashes things we already knew masking them by having Rachel react as if she's hearing them for the very first time. And finally, he's definitely to blame for the cardboard characters who are so bland they don't even have a single characteristic to them. Rachel's editor Max (Simon Baker) has a sizeable part in the film, but I have no idea which adjectives to use to describe him. He is such an underdeveloped character he doesn't seem to have any characteristics. He just exists to fill out the frame. Like a piece of furniture, or a painting on a wall.
The actors try but end up looking baffled. Naomi Watts spends the entire film feigning some kind of panic but the effect is like watching a woman someone's poured a bucket of cold water on look for a towel. With a worried look in her eyes and her mouth wide open, she runs around like a headless chicken hoping someone will care for her character's plight. I didn't.
Her on-screen son, David Dorfman, likewise tries but his character is annoying as only a movie-kid can be with his sarky attitude and flat delivery. There are also cameos from Sissy Spacek, Elizabeth Perkins, and Gary Cole. Since they're not given characters to play, just lines to say, I can't really say much about their performances. Like Simon Baker, they fill out the screen well enough, I suppose.
It is hard to imagine this mess was directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of "Ring", the brilliant Japanese original. On the other hand, there are reports of studio interference on this film which explains a lot. Still, the fact it is so boring and its plot so stilted prevents it from having any kind of atmosphere or scares. It is also not helped by some very poor CGI and silly-looking designs (the faces of those killed by Samara are particularly chuckle-inducing).
There is not much to say about "The Ring Two" besides: it's awful. It artfully avoids any ideas or scenes which could potentially be interesting or scary or even amusing to an audience of adults and goes wholeheartedly for the bore. I snoozed through most of its 110-minute runtime and when I wasn't snoozing I wished I was watching something else. Not necessarily a better film, just a more entertaining one.
0.5/4 - DirectorHideo NakataStarsHitomi KurokiRio KannoMirei OguchiA mother and her 6-year-old daughter move into a creepy apartment whose every surface is permeated by water.28-02-2020
It the world of "Dark Water" it never stops raining which is always helpful in building up a scary atmosphere but instead director Hideo Nakata uses it to underpin the sense of imminent tragedy deeply ingrained in the sombre family drama at the heart of this film. Most ghost stories coquet with the subjects of depression, sadness, loss, and fear but "Dark Water" is a rare one that actually intelligently and sensitively allows those feelings to displace ghosts and scares as its primary objects of attention.
The film's lead character is Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki), a former proofreader who left her job to take care of her small family consisting of her husband Kunio (Fumiyo Kohinata) and their small daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno). Now, the family's broken up and Yoshimi is involved in a custody battle with her husband whom she sees as some sort of devil in disguise. The fear of losing her daughter has transformed the man she once loved in her eyes into evil incarnate even though he doesn't appear to be doing anything untoward or unusual.
Yoshimi struggles in her newfound role as a single mother and the sole breadwinner for her and her daughter. The two move into a damp-infested apartment building under the promise of renovation but even when that renovation comes it is soon undone by leaky pipes and a damp stain which seems to have a mind of its own. Yoshimi gets a job in a literary agency but it means she's frequently late to pick her daughter up from kindergarten, a fact her husband uses against her in the custody battle.
On the way home after being particularly late one night, Yoshimi and Ikuko happen upon a happy family setting off fireworks in the street. Ikuko stops to look with a sad look on her face. "Let's get some on the way home," Yoshimi offers. Ikuko agrees, but we know it's not the fireworks she really wants.
The relationship between mother and daughter is the heart of "Dark Water" and Hideo Nakata gives it all the space it needs to breathe and naturally develop. Yoshimi loves her daughter with all her heart and her biggest fear is not having her around. "I can handle anything, just as long as you're with me," she says. But we frequently get a sense that she can't take care of herself and Ikuko alone and that she's breaking apart under the pressure. Ikuko does her best not to upset her mother. She's the sweetest of children, quiet and loving and good-natured. After a particularly hard night she tells her mother "I don't need anyone but you" and those words alone give Yoshimi the strength she needs to pull through another week.
The father, however, isn't demonised. We are never told why Yoshimi and he are divorcing but he doesn't seem like a bad guy, just perhaps a little distant and, at times, controlling. He is implied to be checking up on Yoshimi and Ikuko which is a natural instinct of any father, I suppose, even if it greatly upsets Yoshimi who sees it as a vote of no confidence. After Yoshimi is late to pick up their daughter from kindergarten one too many times, he chastises her "She's been waiting there all alone. Do you know how that feels?" And it is implied he does.
Abandonment and loneliness are key fears in this film and bring us to its horror parts which although they are few and far between are very effective. Soon after moving into the building Yoshimi and Ikuko begin suspecting they are haunted by a ghost of a little girl who's been missing for a couple of years. After her mother walked out on her she was left living with her father and one day when he was late picking her up from kindergarten she disappeared. Now that he's left the apartment building himself, it seems her ghost wanders the hallways at night looking for company and perhaps love. Her story nicely parallels Ikuko's but also mirrors Yoshimi's greatest fear. These horror elements are very smartly used by Hideo Nakata not to arbitrarily scare the audience but to make us feel just as afraid as Yohsimi does. This is one of the few horror films in which there is no evil, just sadness and fear of loneliness.
For this reason, I can't call "Dark Water" a scary film, just a profoundly, oppressively sad one. Nakata is a master of atmosphere and here he infuses the film with the unmistakable feel of great tragedy. Throughout this gloomy, bleak film I was terrified for Yoshimi and Ikuko because I grew to like them and because I knew their story was not a happy one, but in Nakata's films no one's is and I am usually left with the doubt that there is any true happiness in the world at all except for those little moments between humans we love and those who love us. Such scenes are many in "Dark Water" like the one, for instance, in which Yoshimi and Ikuko celebrate Yoshimi's new job, or the brief scene in which they practice how Ikuko will introduce herself to her new kindergarten class. The loving bond between them is the small shining beacon of hope in the darkness, but it is not eternal and we know it will die, drowned in the neverending rain.
If there's anything I left "Dark Water" with its the feeling that we must treasure those little moments of happiness which are, as Thomas Hardy says, occasional episodes in a general drama of pain.
Hideo Nakata's "Dark Water" is a great, ambitious horror film because it seamlessly blends otherworldly terror with real, human fears. It is exceptionally directed and acted, especially by Hitomi Kuroki whose vulnerable performance as Yoshimi is simply heartbreaking. Nakata finds his scares in the great sadness that permeates this movie and not in jump scares or creepy ghosts and that alone makes him a great filmmaker. I am shocked he has made so few good movies because the technical brilliance he showed in "Ring" and the great sensitivity and understanding of emotion he shows here seemed to herald the arrival of an exciting new voice to the Japanese cinematic stage.
4/4 - DirectorKôji ShiraishiStarsJin MurakiRio KannoTomono KugaA documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon called the "kagutaba."29-02-2020
Koji Shiraishi's "The Curse" is a tough movie to describe. In essence, it's a found-footage horror movie, but describing it as that is doing it a disservice. I'd sooner liken it to a film like David Fincher's masterpiece, "Zodiac", then to something like "Blair Witch Project" (which I also love, by the way) and "Paranormal Activity". How come? Well, like in "Zodiac", the true enjoyment in this film comes from wading through masses of mysterious events and clues trying to find the solution along with the protagonists. Constructed like a puzzle, "The Curse" keeps giving you piece after piece but you are expected to put them all together and therein lies what makes "The Curse" so effective. It requires your full attention and through some great storytelling and a thick atmosphere receives it and deserves it.
The plot is too complex to recount but it follows Kobayashi (Jin Muraki), an investigator into the supernatural on the case involving ancient demons, possessions, suicidal pigeons, and chanting voices heard in the night. The film is presented as a mosaic with a series of sequences which slowly but surely allow you to piece together the whole story. The sequences either come as footage shot by Kobayashi's faithful assistant Miyajima (played by the actual camera operator Hisashi Miyajima) who comes along with him on his investigations or as "archive footage" from various TV shows, news stations, or even live events. For instance, one sequence involves a TV special in which various supposedly psychic children are tested. One of them, Kana (Rio Kanno), performs perfectly on all the tasks but one when instead of a Russian word she draws a mysterious face. In a later sequence, Kobayashi goes to visit her and finds her talking to her invisible friend.
Other sequences may involve Kobayashi interviewing people such as the hyperactive psychic Hori (Satoru Jitsunashi) or tracking down other people who've gotten in contact with this mysterious curse.
Like I said, "The Curse" buries us with various details, false leads, red herrings, and ancient myths, but it is curiously involving as we struggle to piece it all together along with Kobayashi. Who is the mysterious woman who keeps showing up everywhere the curse goes? Why are pigeons in Tokyo flying into building walls? What does all of this have to do with a village flooded back in 1978? It is a captivating mystery above all.
That is not to say the film isn't scary, it's just not scary in the traditional way. I'll probably surprise you by revealing there are no jump scares, a fact which thrilled me. Even though there are ample opportunities for jumps and fake-outs, director Koji Shiraishi opts for a slow-burn atmosphere building method reminiscent of the one used by Hideo Nakata in "Ring". Mysterious, seemingly illogical events entice us to become so involved with the story and its characters that we find ourselves believing that all of these horrible things happening in the film are happening in real life. To that end, he uses a very clever method used previously to great success in the excellent TV movie "Ghostwatch", he employs various actors and TV stars to play themselves in the film's archive footage segments. Real newscasters tell us of the deaths of some of the characters, TV hosts interview fictional characters, and in the most obvious and daring example, real-life Japanese star Marika Matsumoto is possessed by the demon and becomes one of the film's protagonists. This fourth-wall bending technique really pays off and the film has a truly unnerving believability to it.
Of course, for the realism of it to work everyone has to be on their top form which thankfully they are. Jin Muraki is perfect as the investigative journalist in that he's not a pretty-boy film star or a screen-hogging performer. He's a fairly unassuming middle-aged man who keeps himself off-screen for most of the movie allowing his subjects and mysteries to speak for themselves. The visual style has also been crafted with admirable care as the sequences from various sources have different video quality, framerates, and aspect ratios. It is obvious real care was put into "The Curse" and the dividends are paying off.
Where "The Curse" eventually stumbles is the finale, which I won't spoil, but which is perhaps a tad too definite and revealing for what has so far been a very elliptical film. It also boils down to very traditional horror fare descent into which becomes more and more obvious as the film progresses. The further into its runtime we go the more predictable it becomes.
Still though, "The Curse" is a very effective movie. I was captivated throughout and, unusually for a Japanese horror film, mentally engrossed in its plot as I tried to work out exactly what was going on. As found-footage films go, "The Curse" is not as creepy as "The Blair Witch Project" nor as genre-bendingly effective as "Lake Mungo", but it is a fascinating experiment in the possibilities of this much-underdeveloped subgenre. I admire how it used the found-footage format to serve its plot and atmosphere rather than just as a popular gimmick. For those reasons and for sheer entertainment value, "The Curse" is well worth seeing.
3/4 - DirectorTakashi MiikeStarsKô ShibasakiShin'ichi TsutsumiKazue FukiishiPeople mysteriously start receiving voicemail messages from their future selves, foretelling their deaths.29-02-2020
First came Hideo Nakata's atmospheric "Ring", now we get the theme park version. "One Missed Call" trades "Ring's" smart, educated protagonists for teenagers, adds jump scares and a spectacular death scene every thirty or so minutes and replaces the dour atmosphere of sadness and inevitable tragedy for moments of shallow humour and gross-out horror. What is its purpose? To entertain I suppose. But its antics made it less appealing to me than its more thoughtful J-horror predecessors.
"One Missed Call's" premise relies on a gimmick. One by one, each in a group of teenagers receives a mysterious phone call (which they always, for some reason, don't answer and let go to voicemail) which begins with a time and date, usually a couple of days in the future, and then proceeds to replay them the last few moments of their life. And indeed, wouldn't you know it, they begin dying off exactly as predicted by these phone calls. Who's making them? Well, a ghost of a little girl, of course. This is J-horror after all. Why? Who cares. Look, one of the teenagers is about to be decapitated.
Now, most J-horror films do rely on some form of a gimmick or other. "Ring" had the killer videotape, "The Grudge" a haunted house etc. etc. But a gimmick is all "One Missed Call" has and it repeats it ad nauseam. There is no subtext to this movie, no character development and the plot is so basic and predictable it quickly becomes unimportant.
What is surprising about "One Missed Call" is that it is directed by Takashi Miike, of all people, one of the most interesting Japanese directors of the 20th century who proved himself with original, striking, memorable thrillers such as the twisty "Audition", the twisted "Ichi the Killer", and whatever "Gozu" was. I don't know what his idea with "One Missed Call" was but its a film which is unworthy of Miike's genius and would belong more comfortably in the filmography of some Hollywood hack or VFX artist turned director.
Most of "One Missed Call's" problems begin with its script. Based on a novel by Yasushi Akimoto and adapted by Minako Daira it is closer in spirit to the "Final Destination" films than the more atmosphere-reliant fare which is J-horror. It sets up the formula of teenager receives call, teenager is terrified by call, teenager dies gruesomely very early on and follows it until the halfway point. After the halfway point, the last teenager standing, Yumi (Ko Shibasaki) teams up with a rogue policeman (because, of course he is) named Hiroshi (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi) to uncover the truth behind the deaths. This half of the film is plagued by coincidences (Yumi just happens to pass through a hospital hallway just as a girl is using an asthma inhaler), contrivances (there is apparently only one little girl with asthma at this hospital because they manage to trace the little girl they need with just that information in about 10 minutes), and loose threads (what is the significance of the inhaler sound after all). But who cares, there's a zombified corpse attacking Yumi in a deserted hospital. Yipee.
In his defence, Miike does a good job here. His camerawork is always interesting, the death set pieces are well-thought-out and shot, and he even manages to extract several moments of wry humour out of this otherwise bland script. However, not even he can make anything of the cardboard characters. The rest of the creative team do their best as well to varying results. The acting is OK. Nothing more, nothing less, but with the material they've been given even that is too much to ask. Hideo Yamamato's cinematography is slick and moody, but it is composer Koji Endo who gives the most memorable contribution with a creepy, haunting ringtone which is heard whenever the ghost makes one of the phones ring.
I am not surprised this sold well in the US. Like most of their 2000s horror films, "One Missed Call" is all fireworks and no substance. It is a film of loud, crowd-pleasing effects and set-pieces without any thought or real scares. I was never frightened by anything in this movie, not even creeped out, which is unusual for a Miike film. If you're in the mood for a diverting horror thrill ride, it is competently made and occasionally entertaining, if fairly overlong, but it is absolutely nothing more than that. Its flat characters, repetitive story and lack of atmosphere will leave anyone in search of a serious movie bitterly disappointed.
2/4