Recession causing horror boom?

[thomas]

The Fear Factor

Be afraid--an Asian wave of horror at the movies is fast making its way around the world.

=> http://www.feer.com/articles/2002/0210_31/p066current.html

Btw, has anyone seen the "Ring"?

[moyashi]

One student saw the US version of Ring and gave it a possible rent the video rating. I've seen the commericals and my first thoughts were ohh puke.

I've seen All 3 of the Ring series and have even seen the original cut of Ring 1 before it became famous. I saw it on a business trip in a run down hotel in the middle of the night. Let's just say I freaked out since I caught the movie slightly into it and it was just when they put the video into the TV. Grrrr, I still get the chills thinking of that hotel and movie.

Many hotels are haunted in Japan and I had no idea what if I was watching was a movie or ??? errie that's for sure.

[thomas]

More on the "Ring" remake:

Remake of Japanese Horror Classic Big in America

The plot of Ringu (and the US remake) involves people who watch a cursed videotape and then receive a mysterious phone call warning them that they will die in seven days. When this eerie film, the product of director Hideo Nakata, came out four years ago, it quickly became one of those rare hits among Japanese horror movies. It has since spawned two sequels and inspired other horror films, leading to the coining of the term "J-horror" to describe this genre.

The film caught the eye of Steven Spielberg's company, DreamWorks SKG. It had gotten hold of "a very badly dubbed videotape," but the people who watched the film were nonetheless impressed, so much so that they purchased the US rights to remake it within three hours of viewing it. DreamWorks handled the production and signed Gore Verbinski, whose credits include The Mexican, to direct it. The Ring opened on 1,981 screens in North America on October 18, 2002, and took in more than $15 million on the opening weekend, claiming the top spot at the box office, the first time a Japanese remake had done so since Godzilla in 1998. As of November The Ring had earned over $100 million, and it is still continuing as a major hit.

=> http://www.jinjapan.org/trends/article/030109fas_r.html

Official website of the remake:

=> http://www.ring-themovie.com

[Twisted]

I've seen the trailer of the remake... Makes me wanna see the original.

Funnily enough, there was a movie in Thailand released last september (999-9999 (http://www.movieseer.com/MovieProfileBil.asp?moID=2123&Channel=2)) in which some teens call a certain phonenumber which causes them to get killed.
Not unlike Ringu... eh? Except in Ringu it's a videotape.

[matshelge]

After seeing The Ring, only a few days ago, I want to put my hat in the poll.
The remake was far more confusing then I first thought, it has a great setting. The whole rustic, foggy, rotten look over it was great. But I really never got why the girl was killing people. I understood why in Ringu, and how.
Another thing was the clearly hammering of plot items in the American version. Over and over with flashbacks to the movie, for every little item, so that we would recall “ah, this was in the tape she saw” like we are a bunch of idiots what cant remember anything past 5 minutes. That was really annoying. Oh, and the kid actor in The Ring was no good. I got the feel that he was not a kid at all, but a dwarf they had put make up on to look like a child. Something un-child like the way he walked, talked and acted..

And that’s my little rant for today.

[Iron Chef]

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. Having seen both versions, the Japanese one tends to be more eerily suspenseful I think. All in all the American version wasn't bad per se... it just didn't have the same spookiness (if that's even a word) as the original. Hopefully here in America we can expect further such offerings as they are a nice alternative to the traditional "horror" fare many of the mainstream studios insist on churning out which in reality tend to rely more on shock value rather than actually crafting suspense and inspiring fear.
:clap: