Eavesdropping At The Movies

A horror film that everyone knew about when Mike was a teenager, but nobody seemed to have seen, we finally see 1998's Ring - or Ringu, to transliterate the Japanese title. It's been beautifully restored in 4K and we were keen to see what all the fuss was about. And, truthfully, we're left still asking that. Its influence is obvious, Mike suggesting that alongside 1999's The Blair Witch Project it defined a new generation of horror cinema, but we don't find it all that creepy, let alone scary. We suggest a number of factors in its iconic status: its place in the West as a foreign curio, an oddity; its brilliant conceit, a videotape that gives you seven days to live after you watch it, giving it an urban myth quality, rather like the found footage form of The Blair Witch Project convincing people of that film's reality. And perhaps what was different and interesting about Ring at the time of its release has become commonplace enough to no longer appear so. However, none of this is to say that we disliked the