RINGU (1998, JAPAN)

12 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN!

DAY 7

There's this videotape that if people watch it and a nearby phone rings afterward, they die within a week. A reporter investigating this story gets a copy of the tape and watches it and realizes she is probably doomed.

The movie has some good scares (always accentuated by scary music) but it strikes me as more of a thriller than a horror story in that the reporter and her ex-husband painstakingly piece together clues attempting to figure out what the video means in the hope of stopping the curse.

SPOILER ALERT: The ending conclusion the reporter comes to is the way to break the curse is someone who sees the original video has to copy the tape and make someone else watch it who then in turn has to do the same to someone else and so on and so on. But even though her ex-husband didn't make a copy and show it to someone else and ended up dying, I don't see the logic of why she came to that particular conclusion. Perhaps someone else can enlighten me.

Additional casting notes:

I was just thinking how Ringu was remade a few years later as The Ring, starring Naomi Watts. Yesterday's post for Funny Games was also a film that was remade in the U.S. as a film starring Naomi Watts. And wasn't Naomi Watts the star of the King Kong remake from a few years ago? Well, she isn't known as The Queen of the Remakes without good reason.

There must be other 1001 movies that cry out for a remake starring Naomi Watts.

Here's a quick top ten of "Potential 1001 Movie horror remakes that could star Naomi Watts!"

Number 10. As the mother in a remake of The Exorcist.

9. Clearly as Marion Crane in yet another Psycho remake.

8. Is Roman Polanski up for a remake of Repulsion with Naomi?

7. The female lead in yet another version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

6. Isn't it time for another remake of The Fly? Can't you hear Naomi saying "Be afraid, be very afraid?"

5.Perhaps as the plotting circus performer Cleopatra in a remake of Tod Browning's Freaks?

4. A remake of Hitchcock's The Birds? Only if Naomi plays the Tippi Hedren role, that is! 

3. Maybe Polanski is up for a remake of Rosemary's Baby with Naomi as the mother?

2. Don't Look Now remake with Keifer Sutherland and Naomi Watts. Think about it.

and number 1....Naomi Watts as THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN!

Naomi Watts in The Ring (2002),
 a remake of  the 1001 movie entry The Ring (1998)

Naomi Watts in Funny Games (2007),
 a remake of  the 1001 movie entry Funny Games (1997)

Naomi Watts in King Kong (2004),
 a remake of  the 1001 movie entry King Kong (1933)