Critics reviews

["Ringu"] is the most influential film of the late 1990s. We’re not saying it’s the best. We’re not even saying it’s the best horror film. But it did more to alter and revitalise a genre than any other release of its era... [The film] still plays like gangbusters. The shocks are well paced. The design is as lovely as it is horrible. Welcome back.

["Ringu"] became a sensation when it came to America in a glossily effective remake by Gore Verbinski. But the original works best—especially the contents of the tape itself, a Lynchian collection of delicately composed weirdness. Nakata’s patient, slithering movie has many imitators, but no equals.

Nakata's skillful ways of building slow-burn tension and intrigue—with Yoshiya Obara's sound design and the screechy strings of Kenji Kawai's score especially contributing to its creepy atmosphere—are certainly easy to applaud. But as with the best horror films, there is also a trove of subtext to unpack.

One of the most terrifying movies of all time... Devoid of gore or extreme special effects, the film instead has a palpable, intense atmosphere created entirely through its performances — most notably Rie Ino as dark-haired ghost girl Sadako — and stalking camerawork from cinematographer Jun’ichiro Hayashi, which leaves most of the horror in the imagination of its audience.

Ringu has so many singularly arresting scare scenes that of course Hollywood had to come along and steal them wholesale... The success of [the American remake] only proves the sturdiness of the original conceit and the primal pull of its imagery. Its most famous image, of a medusa-like wraith, long black hair obscuring her face as she crawls, then shambles, toward the camera, has become iconic, a figure that stands in for an entire subgenre of cinema.

Nakata helped create a new aesthetic that learned from the horror traditions of his own country, and marry them to the best of horror from outside it; as well as American horror of the 70s, there are nods to Italian horror not only in the soundtrack, but in the more discordant nature of films like Lucio Fulci’s "The Beyond" or Dario Argento’s "Inferno"

"Ring" has indescribably disturbing moments that frightened me out of my wits. But like many of the Japanese horrors that followed, it sometimes has an elliptic and confusing storytelling style that can make plot-progression muddy. A real chiller, though.

Nakata manages to strike a genuinely alarming balance between the cultural depths of Japanese folklore and the surface sheen of latter-day teen culture... And it is this unique combination of old folk devils and contemporary moral panics which gives "Ring" such a nerve-rattling edge.

Seeing it again, you can’t help but notice the stylistic parallels to the David Lynch of ‘Mullholland Dr.’ and ‘Inland Empire’, especially with its use of distorted imagery, creeping camera movements and avant-garde sound effects. The finale, too, still feels as twisted, bizarre and down-right nightmarish as it did all those years ago.

"Ringu" has a minimalist intensity that can stop the heart with a simple flash-cut or a well-timed fillip in the musical score.

It's not so much the gore that interests Nakata as the reporter digs into the case, it's the subtle dread that keeps you up at night in a cold, clammy sweat.

By colliding modern urban myth with arcane lore, director Nakata Hideo has created a fully functioning tale of terror that relies on little more than atmosphere, suspense and a steadily accumulating sense of dread that scratches at the walls of the imagination like fingernails on a coffin lid.