Decent remake of a great Japanese chiller

Rating: 6/10 (21 June 2009)

I'd seen the Japanese original a few times but had not seen the American remake until it was on television a couple of days ago. I hadn't bothered watching it sooner as I assumed it wouldn't have anything to say which the original hadn't already said; while I prefer the original this was better than I expected and had some decent chills.
As in the original the film opens with two school girls talking about a mysterious video tape which after viewing you only has seven days to live. One of the girls had seen the tape when she went with a group of other friends to a remote mountain cabin the previous weekend. Soon strange things start happening, the television turns itself on and something happens which scares to death the girl who saw the tape and leaves the other so scared she has to be put in a mental hospital. This would have been put down to a mere tragic occurrence had the dead girls cousin not been a reporter who thought something strange was going on and overheard the tape being talked about during the funeral. Rachel, the reporter, heads up to the cabin and finds the tape which being sceptical she watches then gets a phone call telling her she has a week to live. She takes the tape back to work to examine it more thoroughly. She lets her ex husband see the tape when he insists he can help her.
When they examine the tape they see that there are references to something that happened on an island several years before where many horses appeared to deliberately drown themselves and the woman who owned them committed suicide, she goes there and finds the house in the tape where the woman's widower still lives, he does not want to talk about his daughter however...
Anybody who has seen the original will have a good idea of what to expect although there are quite a few changes which will either irritate the viewer or make them think it gives the film a degree of freshness. I preferred the way it was done in the original although that may just be a matter of taste. Naomi Watts put in a fine performance in the lead roll and Brain Cox is excellent as always in his small role as the man on the island. I was less keen on the way Rachel's ex was portrayed, he seemed far too laid back. The character of the reporter's son also seemed to have been changed unnecessarily, originally he was just an ordinary child but here he has some unexplained psychic connection to the cause of all the trouble.
If you like a good scare without having to see lots of gore then this is worth watching on television although I'd recommend getting the original instead if you are planning to make a purchase.