Truly terrifying stuff!!

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2003)

My husband took me to see this film and when he said it was a horror I was expecting to sit through another of his kind of horror films i.e.stupid teenagers with lots of gratuitous blood, guts and violence thrown in. I was fortunately very mistaken! I have not seen the original "Ringu", which everyone keeps harping on about, but I am glad I saw this first as it is good not to have anything to compare it to. Taken by itself, I think it is a fantastic film. It's not everyone's cup of tea and the usual horror fans may think it slow, incomprehensible or just plain unscary. However, I loved the mystery and weirdness of it.
It begins a bit like your typical American nonsense with two teenage girls chatting and the conversation coming around to a videotape that is supposed to kill people that watch it. My first thought was: how "urban legend"ish and ridiculous!! However, as the film went on, it clearly had a darker, more powerful and very much more thought provoking aspect. The images on the videotape itself are so "nightmarish", in that disjointed and freaky way that real nightmares can be. They really got under my skin anyway and I actually came to believe in the power the tape had to kill. You wonder how on earth Rachel is going to escape the same fate as the others and I felt real horror and despair on her discovery that Aidan has also watched the tape.
One thing that I think really robs horror films of their ultimate "horror" value is when you come to the explanation/discovery of what's behind it all at the end. I thought the film had let itself down with a typical, rationalised ending. I was very pleasantly surprised with the horrifying twist that developed and I loved the eerie "non-ending" ending - it left me really freaked out and actually believing that the whole thing might be real after all. It is wonderful, psychologically terrifying stuff and I defy anyone to watch it and forget it - I am still thinking about it and giving myself the shivers months later! I won't give any film 10/10, as this is the ultimate and I am always challenging for there to be an even better film out there (this film does exist and is Ringu if everyone else's comments are anything to go by). I give it a superior "must see" 9/10.