One of the scarier movies I've ever seen

Rating: Null/10 (2 March 2003)

This is a very freaky film. It's about a tape and after you see this tape, you die 7 days later. Sounds interesting, yes? So then you have Naomi Watts whose niece died from this tape and she is a reporter and decides to investigate. So it's a horror/mystery/thriller. She watches the tape and so the race is on against time to solve the mystery. She also shows it to the dead-beat dad of her kid (who also watches it on his own).
There are a few criticisms I have. One is that there were too many B-movie thrills in it. Things like when the lady in the convienience store tells the dad "You're going to die" followed by "from smoking too many cigarettes." Haha. Real clever there. Then there are dumb things like when Naomi comes home the babysitter is sleeping on a couch and it looks like she's dead. There are some stupid jokes thrown in also and it seems only for the "well we need to correct the joke-to-thrill ratio here"
The other main criticism is the ending which was rather bleh. Apparently in the original RINGU movie it was the ending that made the movie but I think the ending ruined it here. Basically they spend most of the movie solving the mystery. Then after they solve it, they really didn't solve it! Wow. Then they use some lame claymation technique that looks like it came from "Clash of the titans" to scare you. OOOHH!
But that stuff aside the movie is freaky and if you like horror fliks then this is not only original, but good!