"VIDEO KILLED THE...UH...EVERYBODY" (reviewed by AX)

Sometime in 1999, I read in FANGORIA magazine about a Japanese horror film called THE RING. The reviewer saw it at one of those cool film festivals in other countries that people like me will never go to, and said it was one of the most terrifying films in the last decade. I sat there and wondered if I’d ever get to see THE RING, and as time passed, more articles were written about the movie. It became the #1 movie I wanted to see, but it was nowhere to be found. Then sometime in 2001, I read that American company Dreamworks had bought the rights to it. But instead of releasing THE RING in our country, they were going to bury the film and do their own re-make. I was fucking furious. I was sure of two things: One, that I’d never see the original, and two, that the re-make would suck. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought this either.

Well, in the summer of 2002 I had the good fortune of being able to swap movies w/ someone over the internet, and got a dub of the original Japanese version of THE RING. I thought it was great, but there was no way it could’ve lived up to what I’d built it up to be in my mind over the years. The concept was cool, and reminded me a lot of David Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME, itself an incredible mind-blowing film. The scenes that WERE scary were VERY VERY frightening, but everything else seemed to drag, and I found myself fast-forwarding a lot upon subsequent viewings. I chalked this up to my Americanized MTV generation attention span.

By the time the American re-make of THE RING came out, I really had changed my mind. I was pretty excited about it, and went the weekend of its release to check it out. And I loved what I saw, certianly more than the original. I never would’ve thought it was possible, but I dug the new version more. It’s tighter, scarier, and overall a better production. Seeing this one in a dark theater with an audience is definitely crucial to the overall effect, though, which is the direct opposite of the way the Japanese RING worked. Since the film is about a videotape that kills people, watching the original on video (particularly one I received via mail from a stranger) added to the experience. But the American version is bigger, louder, and freakier…and demands to be viewed on the big screen. One woman in the crowd I saw it with was sobbing openly, saying, “I can’t watch anymore, I can’t…” and making everyone around her somewhat uneasy.

THE RING is one of the best movies of the year, and one of the scariest I’ve seen in a long time. The Japanese truly have been making the scariest films around for the last few years (watch anything directed by Takashi Miike), so now maybe this is the way we’ll catch up. One way or another, people in American theaters need to be shitting themselves with fear. I know the guy next to me at THE RING was. It smelled baaaaaaaad.

(10.21.02)