Ring (1998) Review: A Genre-Defining Horror Film That Falls Short of Perfection

Ring (1998) Review

Ring is among the most influential movies to ever come out of Japan. Setting aside it’s successful attempt to blend Japanese filmmaking into the mainstream, Hideo Nakata‘s wildly successful 1998 film is one of the horror genre’s most well-regarded releases. It transcended where it came from, becoming an international powerhouse and spawning and English-language remake due to its popularity.

And on the surface, it’s easy to see how Ring became so popular. Its interests and themes transcend the region it came from and its spoken language. At the turn of the century, paranoia was spiking because of technology’s rapid expansion into the modern world. Ingenuity was creating a new way of living, and the incoming new tech era birthed a handful of genre pictures that dealt with these exact anxieties.

Ring comments on these anxieties bluntly by using a cursed videotape as the MacGuffin that turns one journalist’s world upside-down. That journalist is Reiko Asakawa (played by Nanako Matsushima), whose niece dies unexpectedly during a strange string of teenage deaths where the victims’ hearts seem to stop inexplicably.

Reiko learns from a few of the local schoolchildren that a rumor is spreading of a “cursed video tape” capable of killing its viewers seven days after the victim sees the tape. Initially convinced the whole thing is a hoax, Reiko works diligently to get to the bottom of the spreading tale.

The investigation leads her down a sinister rabbit hole involving a young girl with ESP powers and her fearful, deranged father. The whole ordeal is quite sad, leading to an ending that is equal parts grimy, upsetting, and nerve-wracking.

While Ring is undeniably influential and important to the subgenre of Japanese horror cinema, I couldn’t help but feel as if the movie relied heavily on its premise and didn’t offer enough between the scares to make for a truly memorable experience. The concept – where a videotape containing a young girl climbing out of a well that can kill those that view it – is inherently a great idea for a horror flick, but the execution isn’t as inventive and climactic.

In-between its best scares, Ring is an occasionally interesting, often dull procedural that doesn’t have enough bite to keep you at the edge of your seat. Reiko is a competent journalist and investigator, but her leads don’t bring her down many paths worth writing about. The movie is bookended by two sequences that ultimately raise the movie’s floor, but the middle section isn’t as creepy or heart-stopping as advertised.

I wish I had experienced this movie as it was released in the late-90s because I think I would have had a more visceral reaction to it. Ring seems like a relic of its era – more an end to 1990s horror filmmaking than a beginning of a new movement to come. And although its a tentpole release for Japanese horror movies, I find movies by the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) to be much more frightening and worthwhile.

Ring is good, but not the genre-defining, international masterpiece I was expecting. Nanako Matsushima gives a central performance that convinces you of her character’s prowess and knowledge, but the direction and execution around her relies so heavily on its initial premise – one I wish offered more entertaining thrills and scares. Because there were plenty there for the taking.

Rating: 6/10