The Ring Universe You Never Knew Existed

Hello, horrorphiles. In this episode, we dissect the many incarnations of The Ring franchise, both American and Japanese. This dissection will be spoiler-free.

“A journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone one week to the day after they view it,” according to The Internet Movie Database.

The average citizen is almost certainly aware of this American version of The Ring, and might possibly even know it was based on a Japanese film called Ringu. But The Ring universe to date actually spans 14 films, 6 novels, 2 TV series, 8 or more manga adaptations, 2 video games, and several radio dramas and short films.

This is Dissecting Horror: Examining the anatomy of fear in film, television and literature with Kelsey Zukowski and Steven Aguilera.

We hope you find it in your cold, black, withered hearts to join our Society of Grotesquery and Loathing and keep our podcast suffering onward:

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Photo credit: Slevin Mors

Transcript

0:03

Hello, horrorphiles. You're listening to Dissecting Horror. Examining the anatomy of fear and film, television, and literature. In this episode, we dissect The Ring universe you never knew existed. I'm writer and performer Kelsey Zukowsky. I'm filmmaker Steven Aguilera. In our society of grotesque and loathing, if you will. I will. And we hope you will subscribe for more, won't you? A journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone one week to the day after they view it, according to the Internet Movie Database. The average citizen is almost certainly aware of this American version of the Ring, and might possibly even know it was based on a Japanese film called Ringu. But the ring universe to date actually spans 14 films, six novels, two TV series, eight or more manga adaptations, two video games, and several radio dramas and short films. The American trilogy of films consists of The Ring in 2002, The Ring 2 in 2005, and Rings in 2017. In these American films, the lead child evildoer is named Samara, with the original Japanese name for her being Sadako. The Japanese ring films total ten, including ring, a 1995 made for television film. Ring or Ring in 1998, a feature based on the same material. Spiral ring to ring zero. Birthday Sadako 3D Sadako 3D two Sadako versus Kayako Sadako and Sadako. As if Samara was reaching out, planning the seeds of her vengeful fury, the ring kept appearing in its various forms, signaling it was time to dissect this eerie, cyclical horror American remake. As I mentioned on our Valentine's episode, at the time of the theatrical release, I was at my peak of plunging myself into the auxiliary dark abyss that is the horror genre, hungering for its exploration and chilling allure. I was still at a point where I could get spooks by horror beyond the more impartial, conceptually scary outlook. I more than often have now. Even among films I deeply appreciate. I remember being in the theater, watching this and being immensely creeped out and that wonderfully thrilling way. Upon visiting my father back in the mid 2000, I found in his video collection a copy of the ring on VHS tape, which then became my introduction to the ring universe. It sleeve bore the image of a screeching Naomi Watts, who had never seen or heard of before, resembling strongly in my mind Renee Zellweger popping the tape into the VCR. It immediately kicked off with the rings Cursed video before even any logos or FBI warnings appeared. The same video that supposedly kills you. Seven days after having watched it. This was a nice touch. In that is presented a nightmarish, abstract interpretation of events as seen through the twisted soul of Samarra, or mysterious and tragic source of of terror in this franchise. Part of the scare factor was how it blurred the lines of fiction and reality, through the means of a seemingly harmless videotape that has a way of getting into your psyche quickly, stripping away that illusion of safety and watching the tape itself on screen. There was a fun yet haunting level of immersion shadowing the characters in the film. We were almost plain with death to willfully witnessing the same cursed footage within the wider film, fully taking into Mars wrath with a similar assumption of the safety net of a being just a movie. Within this, it's moral questioning of whether you would essentially replace yourself as a mars target with someone else, potentially sacrificing them or asking them to muddy their soul was rather compelling, turning everyone into either victim or accomplice and increasing her daunting, continuous reign of terror. Upon rewatching the film for the first time in many years, it holds up well, while the level of chills and scare factor were more subdued for me, I still found it to be a creepy high concept horror, well executed through an eerie, slowly unraveling mystery. Complex characters, and gritty, atmospheric imagery. Released in 2002. The Ring American version was directed by Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films and stars Naomi Watts, best known at the time for her role in Mulholland Drive. It is a common complaint that Hollywood, in our current era, primarily subsists on remakes, sequels, and spin offs of existing material. To me, The ring is that rare instance where this was done right. Unlike other foreign films remade in America, such as martyrs, which we have also reviewed. Here's an example where I'd imagined the original foreign filmmakers might have been quite impressed by this American remake. Instead of going in optimistic and growing increasingly annoyed, I went into this with my skepticism dissipating into a growing appreciation as the film progressed. My expectation going in was for a lame brained, teenage geared horror flick with ditzy characters making stupid, annoying decisions shaped by stupid, annoying studio executives. The first 7.5 minutes consists of only dialog between two teenage girls, yet is filled with many twists and surprises. I I recognized here something deeper at play. First off, I realized I wasn't predicting the events unfolding. It was keeping me off balance. The clever way tension builds in these opening few minutes is masterful. This was my first time returning to the film in many years. I did so after jumping down the rabbit hole of the ring universe, and it's quite expansive evolution through the books. I was rather surprised and delighted how darkly philosophical and rather deep the books were, adding immense richness mirrored alongside the horror, giving an entirely new understanding to the law it held. At its core, it's still a slow burn mystery with elements of the supernatural, but the ring itself is a psychically powered viral infection that mutates and kills you from within after watching the videotape. If you don't fulfill its wishes, which are inconveniently erased from the tape as one person. After the other is infected, it escalates to a point of mass global epidemic mirroring a super cancer. Any humanity untouched by Sadako, the original Samara becoming nearly extinct in the beginning, it was born from traditional disease and a mental merging of will. Thus is far more weird. Science and medical horror focused with revelations and later books that lean far more into both psychological body horror and science fiction, presenting multi-dimensional realities and metaphysical exploration, showcasing both horror and salvation. Back to the film Hans Zimmer is a composer not really known for his horror scores, his closest other work being Hannibal, the sequel to The Silence of the lambs. Yet his music here is hauntingly beautiful and disturbing in equal measure in my top ten horror scores. To be sure, I feel like I say that a lot like more than ten times over the course of the podcast. But it's true. They're all favorites. There we Fair enough. I think my absolute one that I was thinking just the other day while listening to it was the the theme music for The Walking Dead. It actually gives me chills even beyond, let's say, Bernard Hermann's Psycho. There's just something very primal that I think anybody from any culture could listen to that and go, you can just get a shiver. But the visuals with that are very striking as well, and I think those visuals go through my mind when I hear the music and that that lends to it anyway. One thing this film definitely has over ringu is production value, Ringu being the Japanese version of this same film. The cinematic camerawork, sets, actors, editing, score, sound design, every detail is heavily invested in and has such character. Still, part of me feels the Japanese Ringu version holds greater charm for lacking many of these same points, having more of an indie feel while still conveying the same powerful story. As a filmmaker myself, I usually steer away from strong color stylization in my own work, preferring a more natural color correction so much of that of a movie from the 1970s or 80s. But here is a rare case where the strong teal coloration actually does enhance the mood, and I admittedly like it, imparting a strange, otherworldly mood. I'm not sure why a blue green color would do that. It's not exactly a color I associate with death, but I suppose the color of mold or decay perhaps could be colors within the well I was thinking that, but that would be mostly black, like blackness and darkness and not a little a little moss maybe on Yeah, it's almost a zombie color, I suppose to, but. Or Frankenstein is green, but yeah, yeah, I don't know. But it works. I'm definitely I'm definitely a fan of the blue blue kind of tinged cinema in general. And I agree both on the points of the the score and the atmosphere and the unraveling dreadful mystery. All kind of like come together and it is definitely the most polished, I guess, like production value for sure, but I don't know, it just has its own mood to it. That's different from any of the other films. I, in my mind, so thoroughly connect that greenish tinge to Seattle that I expect to go to Seattle someday, and it's all going to look like that. But I don't think Seattle. It's more of a grayish, rainy atmosphere. But there's the the Japanese look and feel of those films as well, which makes me actually really want to go to Japan when I see those films. But there's something of a timeless quality, because I think many of their films, for whatever reason, through the 70s, 80s 90s and 2000, all look exactly the same. The same sort of almost subdued colors, almost a black and white ish film ish stock that they just consistently use. And I love that feel. It's kind of timeless. Yeah. we prepared for this episode, maybe at least for me, roughly over the past month. A lot of that was reading the books. I started with the first book and with the idea, you know, if I was into them, I'd probably continue, but it was more as soon as I finished the first book, it was more like an immediate I need to dive deeper, I need more, I need to know where this goes. And so it turned into five books only because the sixth one has not been translated into English. And then over the I had watched first, then I started with the Japanese 1998 version, and then the 2002 ring, which and then over this past week, it was really where most of the films happened. So the two American sequels and I don't know, like eight, maybe eight of the Japanese. Wow. So I'm like very deep into the ring, the ring vortex right now Were those on to be. That's where I caught a couple of them Tubi was, you know, it's most I've used to be in a while just because I'm not a fan of commercials. But, you know, they really weren't too bad. But I the American remake and the 1998 version were on canopy, which is free if you have a library card. And where was, I think, hoopla had. I think I had one of the I think I had the ring two was on there. I think that Spiral Rings I think was just on Amazon Prime. And yeah, the rest were on Tubi. And then to tack it off at the end, I was a little on the fence about the 1995 version of like, should I go down that path because because I think it probably wasn't maybe the best quality. It's on YouTube, basically the full thing, but it's, you know, I'm sure it's possible there's some degraded quality. And it's the 1998 version is the one definitely more celebrated or at least more popular overall. So I decided to go back to that one, and honestly, I'm really happy I did. I ended it on a very good note. Production value is quite low on that one, more so than the 98 and future Japanese films from there. But story story wise content. The righteous rage of Sadako was amazing like most other version. Played it more safe than that version, and there was a lot of things that were more satisfying and done more right. But it's actually one of the the lesser, I guess, celebrated or known ones, maybe partially because the production quality, some people are like, yeah, I'll just watch the newer ones. Yeah. That's when I didn't know existed until you said it offhand the other day in a text, When looking back on first watching the 2002 ring as a teenager, the most memorable, haunting moments were really the imagery of the disfigured bodies. Once the victim gaze into Samaras soulless eyes, just the mere contortion and visual of that, let alone the reality of what that person is experiencing in that moment. An inch from death, having their body so ravaged and overtaken by something the human body and mind seemingly just couldn't endure, had a way of staying with me. As mentioned previously, this even extended outside my viewing experience, honoring the body horror of this and skits I would do with my friends where we would off the cuff live theater, these death scenes with full exaggerated face contortions. That's what all teenagers do in their spare time, right? Sure. Normally I have a deep burning hatred for all children here, though, I find the boy who plays Rachel's son Aiden, endearing. Enough with perhaps his dark demeanor lending something to that. If I ever did have a kid, I'd want him to be as strange, brooding, and thoughtful as him. I'm also intrigued by the oddly detached relationship between Rachel and her son, each on a first name basis, while still maintaining a genuine mother child bond. He is very mature, almost oddly mature for his age, so maybe that's a part of it. But I also appreciate the eccentric, oddball child with a seemingly connection to dark forces. I think in a way, he's the perfect sort of match or counterpoint for his mother there, almost like in a relationship where one of them makes up for what the other lacks. Like he's more responsible, he's more organized and together, and she's more disjointed and kind of needs him to lay out her clothes or just be ready on time and so forth, or just take care of himself so she can take care of the bills and all the rest of it. So it's an interesting relationship. Many of the key characters in the ring books are very flawed. There were really only a few I truly liked and wholeheartedly rooted forest characters, but was more drawn to the high stakes, slowly unraveling mystery. You can very much understand their dilemma and desperation, and there is a very human reaction within them for the most part. The character, who is Naomi Watts as Rachel in the American films sticks with this messiness, certainly morally questionable at times, but is easily the most likable version of this character, Even outside of the life or death situations. She has empathy, curiosity, personal drive, and selfishness in moments, which is realistic. I also appreciate the portrayal of an imperfect but loving mother. Maybe she doesn't understand everything her son is going through. Maybe at times she's not as fully present as she could be, but she clearly loves him wholeheartedly and will do whatever it takes to fight for him. a direct contrast to the neglect and isolation inflicted on Samara by her parents. Naomi Watts really kills this role, nailing the determination, emotional ferocity and intuitive aspects of the character. The second film largely plays like a standard possession film despite some worthy moments, but even in a lesser film, what's really is the driving force to make it nuanced and evocative. As discussed in our previous valuing podcast, Naomi Watts came up as one of my all time biggest horror crushes. Part of that may stem from a lovely grocery store clerk she resembles, whom I was crushing on around the time this film came out. I Aaron. I even told her once that she reminded me of Naomi Watts and she didn't mind that at all. In. I was struck here multiple times by how captivating Naomi really is, and I think there is something to be said for a movie star. Looks adding something to a film. Yet after saying all that, Martin Henderson, who plays Noah to me, always looked too much like an actor or pretty boy to take seriously as a real character. While that critique somehow does not apply to Naomi, of course, admittedly, though, he has grown on me over the years and at this time I am able to finally put my personal biases aside to consider that he actually performs his role very well here. The only characters I truly hated were the teenage friends of Katie, who was one of the girls at the beginning, specifically her boyfriend Josh and other friends at the cabin smoking, drinking, doing drugs, and acting like general douchebags. They are, however, mainly portrayed through photographs, most of those presented in the deleted scenes. These were exactly the type of annoying dumb fuck kids. I was expecting the film to glorify that we would be expected to root for when I first turned it on, Fortunately, it went in a different direction though, knowing that these were the type of people Katie was friends with did diminish my liking of her. And if nothing else, seemed out of step with the rest of what we saw of her character, well, good riddance. I just love Amber Tamblyn. So I mean, I guess Katie gets a pass just because I shoot. I just love the actor. I love her as a creative force. I absolutely loved her in the film. And if I had not known about all these deleted scenes and stuff in the cabin, I would have thought she was perfect. In fact, I do still think she's perfect. But there is something about I don't know what it was. I'd imagine one of the writers or filmmakers was one of those type of douchebag kids when he was young and admired that or something. Maybe the sort of skateboard culture, I don't know, but that seems really at a place. And maybe that's why they cut all of that out and put it in the deleted scenes, because it just seemed like such a mismatch. Or maybe the focus groups felt the same way I did. Who knows? Yeah. And like the little bit that we do see of her character is very like sort of intellectual and, I don't know, judging norms of pop culture and society even like the TV critique and you know, so I guess, yeah. Then going to kind of the trivial standard kids partying at a cabin does seem like a little cliched and against her character, but I don't know, sometimes, sometimes people go against their grain in relationships. There was that side of her where she was a loving. What is it? She an aunt to Aiden. She was somehow really cousins. Cousins. Okay. They were close. Definitely like a older sister sort of bond. Yeah. And that's the image that I like of her that makes me root for her because she was more of, you know, into she loved her little cousin. And that was enduring to me. And then I think there's something to be said to about trying to make her a complete opposite off screen. And that would be something that played in with her mother's surprise of like, what are you talking about? She has a boyfriend and this whole hidden life. So it kind of works on that realm. But I still hate it. It works. But that could almost be like a whole different movie, you know, like if there wasn't all this other stuff going on, if it was just like the murder mystery of someone who died and then unveiling this other part of their life like, that could be a whole other movie. But I agree, kind of. It wasn't this movie. And there's there's so much more compelling things to to do. while there are similar aspects, the American version makes some significant changes to our key villain that differs from the Japanese versions, both film and book. Simply changing her age from a young adult to a child changes her a lot, creating a tragic creepiness mingled with this immense power. And this attacks into the horror of the dark, demonic children's subgenre. Effectively, I can appreciate anything that takes the perception of innocence and sweetness expected of young girls and plays with it, allowing it to reveal something far more sinister and cunning clinging at the edges. That is exactly what we get with Samarra. After enduring such horror, isolation and estrangement, she showcases the depths of that darkness, letting her bite back at the world that only showed her fear and betrayal. Samara is genuinely creepy, almost like an angel of death, but one only with malicious, vengeful intent. Once you are marked by her, it becomes a near impossible race against the clock to figure out how to appease her and walk away with your life. My strongest memory of this film always stuck out as being the most significant and powerful in the story. I won't give it away, but it depicts Rachel in a chilling moment at the end, weighing a stark choice in the preservation of her son. It takes place in a crowded video store. would even argue it's the most chilling scene in the film that's not actually in the film at all, because to my shock, I came to realize that it only exists as a deleted scene, a fact over the years, I had forgotten why they would have cut. This moment is a complete mystery to me. In other deleted scenes are mentions of where Samara was adopted, along with other bits of exposition that fill in numerous blanks and plot holes. Also included are scenes explaining or expanding upon imagery visible in the cursed tape. I'm not sure if I ever watched the deleted scenes, and I even I might still own the DVD somewhere, but I definitely it was one that I owned around the, you know, around the time it came out and watched fairly often. I think it's on the original VHS version as well. it's when I think of the ultimate ring moment, it's this deleted scene. And it's jarring to me that most people have no idea what I'm talking about because they've never bothered, or they watched it on streaming or in the theater or something like that. But if you can catch it, it's probably on YouTube. I would recommend searching for in the video store. That one Yeah, the scene is in the video store. right, let's do our own digging. Yeah. Samara also taps into the age old question of nature versus nurture among the origin of evil. She seemingly always had darkness in her from the beginning, which is a distinction she has from Sadako. Was she inherently evil, or was at how she was disregarded and mistreated? Could she have channeled this rage differently if not treated like an abomination? As a villain, she holds a good balance of inspiring some sympathy for what she went through in life. Only in death, having an outlet for her unrest and And realizing the now irreversible depths of her malignant desire that fuels her. The American version made her their own, but kept some of the core factors. all versions, she is an outcast who went through an unspeakable tragedy, was murdered by a loved one and tossed in the well, seen only the ring of light as she slowly suffered and succumbed to death, coming out the other side and only wanting to unleash that trauma, fear and anguish on the world at large. In the end, I think enough time and enough copycats have demonstrated this film to be a true horror classic, if not a horror masterpiece in my book anyway. It has a strong, eerie quality which greatly appeals to me, chilling in moments with an intriguing mystery keeping us engaged with the building suspense of a ticking clock premise. You, Kelsey, may have other feelings after having read the books and being the general snob that you are. Well, thank you know, I think it has made its mark. And not that it's the first of its kind, but I think especially I think it's the combination of like the cursed film. Me personally, I always find any material that deals with that to be like pretty fascinating, and it kind of digs in through that. It digs into this idea of mindless entertainment or what's real and what's unreal and kind of merging the two and as well sort of the moral cyclical of the only way to escape it is to pass it on to someone else. And you've seen, honestly, like a lot of other horror films, have followed that format. And I wouldn't necessarily say this is the first to ever do that, but I think it's definitely one that was iconic and notable enough to inspire similar, similar manifestations of evil in other horror films. I believe this is based on essentially an urban legend, but I don't know if there was a specific urban legend, but it really has vibe of something that we would have said to each other as kids. But the movie was at 1995. Do you know when the books first came out? I think 1991 was the first one. Okay. Well, it seems like to me those sorts of urban legends didn't really, hit the scene until the internet was a big thing. But apparently that's not true if this was prior to 91. And so I wonder if there was an actual urban legend of such similarity that all this was based on, or it was just. Or maybe urban legends grew out of stories like this, and there's sort of an intermingling of creation that who knows? It all gets lost. I imagine it's probably a mixture of urban legends and stories passed down, I think both verbally and and written. Because also when you look at Samara or they're pretty much the tragic, tragic human life turned monster, and that is true of of many, honestly, most, most powerful, monstrous creatures, there's usually some sort of a backstory and tragedy. So in a way it's bringing in understanding in a little bit of a voice to what you would normally just view as like faceless evil. But also, I guess if it's kind of a lot of times urban legends or dark fairy tales or this law is also meant to instill fear, but also within giving, I don't know, children good values or like, I don't know, I even think of like the like llorona of be good or later on I will get you so. And she also had a very tragic story where you can sympathize and understand, but she's still a monstrous being that will destroy you. So I think it's, you know, a lot of just various stories like this that exist around the world and have for probably as long as even oral storytelling has existed. The fact that this is Japanese based originally and you just spoke of what is that? Spanish? There is a commonality because I'm thinking this ring sort of urban legend sounds so American to me. And I think, oh, wait, that was that was Japanese. And so we almost have this primal urge to, tell morality tales or cautionary tales or similar sorts of stories appeal to all cultures across the board. And maybe that's why this franchise has been so successful across the Pacific and across the world. Yeah, and even when reading the books, like, maybe there was like the very occasional reference, that was something into Japanese culture that, you know, of course, I didn't experience, but that was actually very brief. I think almost everything in the books is it could almost exist in almost any other culture. It's just a very it's just a very compelling story with a lot of different layers. But the the fascination and fear that it holds, I think is pretty universal. As a remake of the Japanese film. More so than the books, the 2002 version is particularly effective, mirroring the characters and story closely while still having some breathing room to be its own film. In many ways, I actually found the American remake to be more mysterious, atmospheric, and eerie, leaning into realism and a compelling execution a bit more than 1998. Renew the American film plays, the plot reveals and character dynamics true to its cinematic source material, even with some scenes and dialog being very closely matched, the 1998 renew is a little truer to Sadako backstory in the books, even if leaving the most compelling elements out I like. There was an element of her supernatural power and darkness, even in life, escalating to a sort of postmortem coming of rage. Before the ring in 2002 from America, there was ring, a 1995 made for television film directed by G. Sui Taga taka Guagua. That's going to piss somebody off. Three years later, in 1998, hideous Nakata directed ring or ring GU. You say ring you. Am I saying it wrong the whole time, or do you have some? ringu? To be honest, after 11 films and five books, I think my brain is mush. And also reading reading it versus hearing it is sometimes different. Ring. We should just look it up No, I think we'll just. I'm not on percent sure Okay. Looking it up. Oh you know what? On my phone. How do you pronounce the 1998 Japanese version of the ring film? Is it ring goo or ring you? Japanese film ring is pronounced ringu, which is Ringu, not ring you is the original film directed by Hideo Nakata, Well, there you go. G My mine sounds more, I don't know what the word is primitive or like how a dumb person would pronounce it, but apparently I'm right, and that's all that matters. There you go. I consider this a first rate film, if nothing else, because I can't really pinpoint any significant flaws or anything particularly off putting, aside from perhaps the pacing being a bit slow. The film certainly isn't as cinematic as the American version, but I can't really call that a fault. If I had another nitpick, it might be that the character of Sadako looks more like she's in her 20s Than the actual eight year old age of her character, but sounds like to me you were describing it as being different. That's just is supposed to be like 20 years old. The American version changed Well, then that's not a flaw. So there. it's actually accurate. There you go. It has an almost 1970s or 80s quality and a static I quite enjoy. It also has the extra layer of presenting a story from the viewpoint of a different culture in a different country, which I find fascinating in itself. I wonder then, if those in Japan feel the same about seeing a American version two. Yeah, I think to an extent, every film in any art or story is always going to be a little bit a product of that filmmakers world experiences and their environment and where and where they live. So yeah, I think honestly, I really like the American remake, but I also view it as a very different version from the original story. Agreed. When fly I found in the Japanese films, was its use of visions being very much overused? It begins to feel a bit too easy, as our main characters are trying to equally help Sadako end her reign, and are constantly given all the answers they need. The X character, being a seer, felt very out of the blue. This storyline continues in the sequels and is present in all Japanese film adaptations, not only with him, but one character after another. Also, having these seer abilities, becomes farfetched and again, very overused. I would have liked there to at least have been a little bit more build up or foreshadowing of Rouge's abilities, and for them to limit this plot device more as it continued with different characters. And on the note of his character, he was a pretty pivotal character in the books. But even there, I found him to be quite underdeveloped, with hints at his true nature without really ever digging into what that was, especially regarding very critical aspects of his past actions and current mindset. The films largely don't get into the murkier aspects of his character, which is probably for the best if it's not going to be fully explored, But also, except for a few film versions that are more loyal to the book, they don't utilize him that fully as a character when he contributes quite a lot to the overall story. The American version largely veers away from this psychically heavy character focus, but still finds ways to utilize Samaras visions in a way that feels more grounded and less easy. we find out through our main character's son that she's been showing him things in his dreams, offering a connection to him. But we don't see these visions, and most are only revealed to Rachel when it's too late. They don't have the same effect of giving the protagonist all the answers. The route the American film takes to tackle the vision Samara imprints on them, offers more subtlety, and allows this tension fueled mystery to unfold. Truly being in the hands of the journalists to figure this out or have her own life and her son's life be abruptly and brutally ended. I'm aware of others adamantly declaring that Ringu is superior to its American counterpart, though I confess The American version appeals to me more, In fact, on Rotten Tomatoes, Ringu holds a 98% critic score and 81% audience score, while the American version has a much lower 72% critic score and mere 48% audience score. That 48% is perplexing to me. A substandard rating for what I consider exceptional filmmaking, although I do have my character and dialog quibbles with each viewing of this film, I grow more and more impressed. Which version do you prefer? Kelsey? The Japanese or American version of the ring? Honestly, I can't. I can't really say because there's they're just so different in different. One cool thing about this is I, in almost every single film that I watched, even some that maybe weren't great overall, I found something I really liked about each one. I'll say the best original I like. I like the American original best. It's hard to say again, because the 1995 film is by far a more accurate version of what the story is, and there was a lot that it did that I was really satisfying and really connected to me, and I think just made a lot of the I think especially one of the things I loved about the books is how philosophical it was, and I definitely think the 95 version captured that best. And there was a lot of aspects of Sedaka's backstory and this origin of why everything was happening, and I feel like that's the only film that really captured that. I guess if I had to say, I might say, I might say the 95. But again, the things I really liked about the American one are just are just completely different. So it's just it's just a completely different film. Sequel wise, spiral is definitely my favorite. yeah, it's I know reading the stats is interesting because I largely don't don't agree there. The 98 was good overall and like it tells like especially if you align it to the American. There's a lot of things that are very very similar. The characters relationships even like they're both journalists. It's the the niece who dies the mysterious deaths and they start looking into it. And like so many of the dynamics and even there's even some scenes and dialog that almost completely lines up. So in many ways they're like very paralleled. But then they also really kind of go their own path. And there were a few things like mostly the the psychic kind of stuff, not not just for Sadako, but other characters that kind of like made it feel a little bit more lazy and disjointed in the 98 version. But yeah, I don't know. I have. It's just such an expansive world overall, and I think I have probably even a deeper appreciation now going back to the American ring, because I again had very memorable experiences with it and loving it at the time that it came out in the age I was and all that. But going back, I'm like, oh no, this really holds up. And I think it's like the look in the atmosphere and it it really does do like that slow burn, but very morbid, curious horror throughout. And keeping that sort of taking time clock of really almost kind of being out of their depths of how to even survive or figure out this death riddle, so to speak. And it really captures those twists and everything pretty, pretty well, while definitely being in a very, a very different version. Yeah, it very smoothly conveys everything it needs to. And there is a polish to it. And as a filmmaker myself, just taking away the story and all the whatever past versions of it may exist, just looking at it as a film in itself, in how it was executed, the camera work and the sets and the details and all the props. And I think it's just such a well-made film that I'm really perplexed as to why it has only 48%. Is it loyalists to the earlier films that are rejecting the Americanized version, or am I putting too much stock into Rotten Tomatoes? Something is there that I can't compute. That doesn't factor into this because I've never heard anybody speak ill of it. It's always been something that's been copied a lot, and you see it as something of a model. Like, I personally know two people who are filmmakers who made their first scene of their film. They modeled it after the first scene in ring. It's just like a standard. And we've talked about in the past how movies like smile, and I think there's 1 or 2 others where they emulate the whole, you got to pass on the curse, or else you're going to die within a certain amount of time. It's kind of a it's almost a trope at this point. So with all these homages to ring, like, where is this negativity come from? Or does it actually exist? And I'm just not reading the stats, right? Yeah, it is interesting. Maybe almost just on principle, people are like, oh, well, it's an American remake. So like I have to view it not, not as, not as well. But yeah, it has been clearly influential in, in a lot of other films, and it seems like one that people like or at least had memorable experiences with. But yeah, it's kind of like under respected. I would say, well, I feel better you saying I do agree purely like on overall qualities of good filmmaking. Probably like on those merits alone. I would say that American remake definitely stands out the most. I the reason I like some of the Japanese films is more because it connects and tells the story of the books a little more authentically. Some of them do, some of them go completely their own way. So this isn't true of all of them, but the the Japanese films that really kind of connected or stuck with me the most. It was also partially of what they portrayed that the books portrayed that I really loved. Good. Well, I thought you were going to come down on the American version more, especially after delving into the other ones, and he almost hinted that there was something about there was something of a diminishing of of your opinion of the films after having read the books that you marked on in a, in a text the other day, and I wasn't sure if that was more of a, I don't know, more of an esoteric thing that we as horror fans are going to steer more towards the original source material and, and just sort of, you know, snub the American remakes. And if that was going to happen in this case or not, but we're actually more in line than I expected on this one. yeah, there's still more depths to go into here. But yeah, the books are much deeper and go a million different layers and routes and this constantly changing and evolving structure that hasn't been really captured that much in film of any film adaptations. So there probably that was like the comparison of the books revealed how much more that there is to this story, but I can still appreciate the American film and. Celebrate it for what it did well without even if it doesn't go into this whole other, deeper dimensional world. Well, that's what I'm most curious about myself. So please do tell. In the books. The tape itself has a much more mystical and visceral quality to it. While it's implied in the films that the ring tape is a sort of psychological connection from Samara to the viewer, allowing her to control their life like a grim reaper with a personal vendetta. The true nature of the tape itself, and its effect on the viewers far before their deaths occur, is more macabre and invasive. The tape is a manifestation or imprint of Sadako genetic material through the five senses, with essences of her eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin she willed into being from her mind, which Asakawa Rachel in the Japanese version, describes feeling like a shadow sneaking into him through sense organs, essentially a parasitic haunting that immediately takes effect. The images on the tape are rather surreal, a hybrid of illusion and reality featuring some things that exist in the world and could have been captured by traditional film means, and some that are clearly abstract. Sadako mental landscapes, all of which have a way of contorting, merging, focusing on focusing at a constant tug of war between distinct and elusive, fantastical and grounded, while offering ghastly forced immersion, almost as if the tape itself makes you an active part of the trippy terror you are taking in The effect the tape has on you is described as incredibly grotesque and overpowering, almost like sensing one's own rot from the inside out and not being able to help but breathe it in, letting its roots cement in you. As creepy and entrapping as the tape itself is, another interesting aspect of the books is how far beyond the tape it goes. The tape is a tool for Sadako to spread her eternal rage and destruction. Through the tape. She wills the fate she wishes on the viewer, but is only one of many tools. And in the grand scheme of things, it's almost like child's play and the time it would take to infect one person, who then copies it and infects another person, and so on. Her ambitions evolve to something much grander than this, really. She's seeking destruction of the world so a new world can arise in her image. She proves herself to be pretty formidable in this endeavor. The tape can be copied or changed to many formats of media that can reach wider audiences. Even a transcripts, a book, a widely distributed studio backed film, for example, all would have the same effect being that it's still prolonging Sadako will and transforming her DNA to each person who witness it, not to mention the literal viral infection the ring created and its ability to mutate. It even becomes far bigger than Sadako herself. As powerful of a player as she is, this is a very metaphysical book series with where it goes, so the limits are constantly stretched and redefined, while having a way of connecting and coming full circle. It was a rather exhilarating, curious, and ever expanding whirlwind through the ring and its many facets that had me appreciating the books the most, but also allowed me to appreciate more of what the films included in a renewed way. at two hours and seven minutes, The Ring two American version presents a sharp decline in cinematography, writing, editing and directing the sets, props, sound quality. Everything across the board feels rushed and lazy, as if it had only one fourth the budget, schedule and care, for example, putting the famously bad CGI deer attack scene aside, there is one simple to execute shot that always stood out to me. We see a close up of young Aiden's video camera in his hands, showing us the video he is recording on its flip screen. On to this. No one bothered to track the video screen to move with his hand-held motions, creating an obvious misalignment between the two. Essentially, the camera's view screen is frozen in location, while the rest of the camera shifts around, appearing as more of a temporary placeholder for the purposes of editing without it ever having been replaced with the actual Finished visual effects shot very sloppy, but technical details aside, we also have random generic supernatural horror clichés like flames shooting out of the stove or objects rattling which have no relevance or precedence in the ring universe. It felt as if the studio ordered more scares into the story after focus group screenings suggested it wasn't frightening enough, And generally speaking, there was just little or no mystery to keep us engaged. I don't mean this film was bad because the original was such a masterpiece that this just somehow wasn't able to live up to that, if it were merely good or even decent, I wouldn't be so upset by how poorly the sequel was made. I would even dare say it's one of the top ten worst movies I've ever seen, and that's not some exaggerated expression I routinely throw out lightly. It was a real struggle to get through, and I could only tolerate it in sections, taking many breaks. Yeah, it's not great. I didn't hate it as much as you did. It was probably the one that was in watching it again was probably the most of like a fresh experience. I think I had watched it when I first came out, but honestly, I didn't really remember much about it. I think in in my mind actually, with Amber Tamblyn being in the first one for a minute, I was like, wait, do I have a vague memory of her being in the sequel? And I'm like, how did that happen? No, I was thinking of The Grudge, which is also based on Japanese film, and she's in that sequel. Really? Yeah. Oh, Yeah. But yeah, she was not in it, but it's I got some enjoyment out of it. I think mostly Naomi Watts, like, I think she just really did. She made that character like interesting. And she is going through all this emotional turmoil and she's strong and willful and has this empathy to try to connect with Samara and realize what she really wants. I didn't really mind too much of the direction that they they went, but it's it is very lazy and it's very much just kind of your standard possession film. And I feel like the series was always something a little bit more interesting and complex than that. So yeah, there just wasn't like a ton of effort there. Just like these are the staples of possession movies. Let's throw all this in there. So it was more of like a copy and paste thing. I thought that too. And on Rotten Tomatoes, The Ring two has a befitting 21% critic score and 33% audience score. I did watch most of the Japanese version of ring two and certainly liked it more than this, though it does fail to live up to ringu, to be sure. Shockingly, the American Ring two film was directed by Hideo Nakata, the same director of the original Ringu and the Japanese version of ring two. Was there some kind of language barrier issue, some cultural difference in filmmaking? He was not able to adapt to what happened. Well, so spiral, which is definitely one of my my favorites of the Japanese films, which is based on the second novel and is one of the more accurate adaptations. I would say it was not very commercially successful, and it was. That film was released at the same time as the 98 Ringu, so that was meant to be sort of like a package deal where they saw the story going. But it's definitely a much more dramatic and much more about grief and loss and some of the moral dilemmas, too, of like, would you sacrifice the world for the one you love? Sort of a thing, but and it digs a little bit more into the medical horror and like parasitic elements. So there's a lot I really loved about it. But it's definitely not your traditional, like, jump scare sort of horror. So I'm guessing maybe it was just it was more dramatic than people were expecting. So they essentially redid it with Ringu two, which going back to it, I did. I did appreciate and like that one more than I thought I was going to, but I still like spiral more. I was struck with a memory while you were talking that the movie spiral is the same name as a movie with Amber Tamblyn, Chris Rock, oh. Oh no, that's a difference. There's so many spirals. Yeah, yeah, that's that that that one to the saw Yeah, off, exactly liked. I liked it to actually. But it's it's not to be confused with the spiral we're talking about and not to be confused with with Adam Green's spiral, That's Amber Tamblyn was also in That is so weird. It's almost like the Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever it's called. even among some deviations in the American and Japanese sequels, each film had at least one aspect that connected to the origins of the source material, digging into a core aspect of the plague. the American sequels, while having some flaws, dug into the ever present theme of death and life intermingling, even making way for rebirth, which was a constant throughout the books. There are several series and variation timelines within the Japanese films, which went fairly different paths, but in each film I watched, there was at least one connection that felt authentic to Sedaka and this grim design for the world she sought to unleash and the wider complexities and mindset author Koji Suzuki created with the most accurate and deeply resonating being the original 1995 made for TV movie ring and 1998 spiral sequel. where all the books written by the same person, by the way. Yeah. What was the average page count for these books? Were they like epics? No, no, not at all. That's why I was able to read like five and like a week and a half. They're the average. They're almost exactly the same. They're all around 280 pages. The fourth book is more of an anthology, so there's three different stories from things that we've already experienced, but it was more women's point of view and kind of their own stories, and that one was a little shorter. 240 or maybe that one might have been 220. And then the fifth one, which I really liked is called S, and that one was around 240 as well. So it was it was somewhat of a modern take and actually has a filmmaker perspective. And it as well, because one of the main characters is like a CG film artist, and he starts investigating this tape and realizing it couldn't have been manufactured. And there's a lot of different connections. But and even though each book kind of had its different set of characters and stories, they all connected to a character from the original. So it was kind of and that almost added to the cyclical nature, because a lot of it was like going from one generation to the other. Interesting. I will never read them, but come on, two, 280. You can do it. Yeah, no, I actually completely forgot there was a third American Ring film, which probably says something on Rotten Tomatoes. It received a dismal 8% critic score and 23% audience score, by far the lowest rating of the American Trilogy. Rings first appeared as a 1642 second short on the DVD special features of both The Ring and the Ring two, eventually to be expanded into the third ring feature. According to IMDb quote, A young woman finds herself on the receiving end of a terrifying curse that threatens to take her life in seven days, unquote, which is about the same premise as the first film. More to the point, this film evolves the spread of Samaras insatiable wrath through copies of cursed VHS tapes into the digital age, where it can disperse as something closer to a computer virus, along very questionable actions. A university professor who discovers the tape at a swap meet monitors his students, who uses as research test subjects in an effort to understand it and its ramifications for what lies beyond. Is it safe to assume, Kelsey, that this digital premise was derived from the books? Yeah, I would say in s it it's yeah, I guess even before that. So like earlier on, I think even at the end of see the end of the first book, I think where it got it, they take it from just like this kind of random VHS tape passed from person to person to it's going to become like a major motion picture. And now everyone who sees it will be infected. And there's also where a book is being published, you know, mass publish. So everyone who reads it will be infected in under grip because it's I think it plays in the books there. They kind of like break the rules more and they're kind of are no rules. So I feel like that made it even more horrifying and entrapping because even if you like, break the curse, so to speak, you're more on like, Sadako borrowed time until she's done with you so you could, like, pass it on to someone, and then she deems you use for for a while, and then she's like, okay, I'm done with you. So now I'm going to discard you. So there's kind of like, really no winning unless you defeat her. in the more recent one. S they I think it reminded me a little bit of it, kind of bringing it a little bit more to like a digital age and even more mass, mass producing. But there's again, very different because there's it's like a different like suicide video that's come out from a serial killer who's going to be executed. So like parallels but different. Wow. They really stretch that premise into lots of fresh directions. But, there's something really intriguing and cool about the direction this cursed video has taken, yet simultaneously, something bordering ridiculous and lame at the same time. And I can't decide which. I guess it depends on the execution. I'm all for taking things in new creative directions. But there is one hitch it actually has to be done well. New creative direction for the sake of new creative direction just isn't enough. I'm torn because I appreciate the taking of weird and wild risks. But at the same time, what we get here is so far disconnected from anything I originally found intriguing about the first ring, that there's little or nothing recognizable here to fit, that it feels out of place. Yet part of me kind of digs it. The concept that is not this movie. No, I mean, I think it's definitely a little bit of a reimagining. And yeah, it is hard if you're a you're stretching out in a way of not, not just the American, but also like how many versions more than I realize. As we were doing this podcast, I kept on thinking, thinking, okay, I think I've about got it all. And then I realized, like this whole other other series that was paralleled and released at different times, and this ties into something from the books and this ties into this viewpoint. So it is, I mean, incredibly immense. If they it was obviously initially based on the 98 Japanese film, I think more so for than the books. So I don't really judge the American film on the book scale as much, because I don't think it was really ever meant to parallel those as much as be its own version of what was created in the Japanese film. But yeah, it's I'm sure they were aware of what had been created and was out there and trying to be kind of true to the law that they created, which was somewhat different than the Japanese law that the various different versions had, and still trying to build something new off of it. And to an extent, you kind of have to, with these longer running series where you can only do the same thing with like the same characters, like so many times before. You have to do like the passing off of the torch, but you saw the be true to the roots and what made it compelling and what it was always about. But if you're doing sequels and not expanding on it at all, I think those are the sequels that just kind of feel like throw away and money grabs and not really much of value. So for me, this rings was a mix. There's things I wasn't like, amazing. Definitely. The first American film is is far better without question, but I think I appreciated just that they sought to expand it and what it could be, and even the bringing it into the thought of the viral video seems only like logical, because we're so far removed from like a VHS being handed around, right? you almost have to bring it to the next age. And and in a way, I liked that it was like mass infection and mass like just bringing out her hate and rage on more people, because that's still very true to the original Sadako, actually. So there was like even the films that weren't as good, I think I they, they connected it to something that was a really important, great aspect in the book. So I think that's part of why I could appreciate even like the lesser films where they did at least one thing where I'm like, yes, okay, you got that part right. Which was still like satisfying in his way. few movies I have seen contain more characters that irritate me. With this film hitting us with its two annoyingly over attractive leads in bed together. In their first scene, Matilda Lutz, our lead actress, strongly resembles a 16 year old Jessica Alba to the point of distraction, which admittedly is a weird criticism to give an actress, especially considering how gorgeous Jessica Alba is. The standout for me was Johnny Galecki, who plays Gabriel, the shady professor. Vincent D'Onofrio performance as Burke is great as usual, but his character is very off putting. In my view, though, he was meant to be. To be fair, that's true for for me, I can't hate that film because there's a character that dies very early. It's a killer videotape. We know there's going to be deaths. I don't think that's a real spoiler, but there is a character who dies very early, and it was more about the actor is in the show of Vampire Diaries, and I absolutely love his character so much in Vampire Diaries, and they just wouldn't like the creator just would not kill his character like she. At one point she had even tweeted things of stop like writers room and fans stop telling me to kill Matt Donovan. It's not going to happen. And it was just like, unrealistic. Even. He's like the only human and going against much more powerful forces and other people who are much more powerful die. But he is the one can't be touched. And he was just an annoying, whiny like loathsome. But he had that, like victim complex where all of his problems were everyone else's issues. And just like, horrible, horrible character should have died. I was faked out of like, oh, maybe we're going to get it. Maybe we're going to get a million times over, like, I don't know, over ten years. And this movie came out and they immediately claim and I'm like, finally. So that for completely reasons not at all related to any of the material, that was very satisfying. I made the movie worth it in itself. All right. While I can appreciate the various forms of the ring and how many sequels and different iterations the original book inspired, I think it's still prime for a reimagining that follows the book's daunting, dark exploration more closely, and even breathed new life into it. While I was deeply enthralled by the books and rather impressed with their depth, intellect, and entrapping interpersonal terror, some of the most compelling areas and perspectives were only ever so briefly touched on, but not nearly enough, particularly Sadako story In the book, she's a young adult, shunned from the world for being a gender while being ridiculed and ostracized for her mystical powers, then coerced, sexually assaulted, and murdered by someone near to her, dying ever so slowly in the well as she has time to dwell on the ugliness the world has shown her. Her suffering too great, turning her into a monster that rises in death with renewed power and purpose. Showing stark parallels to the Medusa Tale. She isn't just trying to get back at those who wronged her. She has a righteous, never ending rage and vengeance fueled as society as a whole, working alongside bigger forces of the universe like companions and annihilation. She doesn't want anything as simple as the life she never got simply to be loved, as in the American sequel ring to she's far beyond that, having transcended into chaos and destruction itself, being quite adept and cunning and cascading that into a world she quickly has her claws sunken into. While it's touched on more in the books, I still continuously found myself wanting more to dive into her body, mind and soul, to awaken what was silence within her and simply let her speak her truth, even if it didn't undo her suffering and vengeance. Although reportedly, there is supposed to be a bigger focus on her emotional ferocity and personal reflections in the last book, tide, which unfortunately has not been translated from Japanese I really do love and appreciate Samara and Sadako, each in their own way, while being linked as sisters and suffering and righteous rage. I do view them as different characters. Samara was the one I knew for 20 years before I ventured into the Japanese origins. I found her wonderfully creepy, sympathetic and savage as she should be She holds a place in my horror heart, without a doubt. But my connection and love for Sadako was quite a bit fiercer. Their stories are similar, but uniquely their own. One big difference is there's a pretty clear understanding of Samara, who she is, what shaped her, what feels her now, and comparison for Sadako. We understand these things on a base level, but we have never really gone into the depths and most importantly, never really heard her own story. As I was reading and getting into every ring in Sadako title, I only hungered for it more. the moments I got were intoxicating and immensely satisfying. But it's clear there's so much more there and I want it all. would love to see this all tackled by a filmmaker that could approach the identity story, the social commentary, and the rage becomes her layers in a reflective way that even the books didn't explore as fully as they deserve to be. Among this, I would love to see a representation of the invasive, parasitic, nearly unstoppable horror that offered some of the most haunting, unfathomable horror of the books, especially with the women she essentially instills for surrogacy on as they feel the invasion of her within their now alienated bodies, making them a disposable vessel of her twisted world design and nothing more. it's an interesting topic to tackle, as she is such a vehicle for exploring women's rights and wrongs with wonderful power. She has fine tuned like an instrument that is a part of her now, she also creates plenty of feminine suffering. And what could spawn more? Tragedy and rage create another ring of isolation and cruelty. Even in creating a new world in her image, this would seemingly never end. This material is also ripe for a portrayal, focusing on the visceral nature of the tape and expansiveness of the virus far beyond the one death at a time model of the existing movies, and how there is not truly any winning the game with a higher inclusion of the provocative, intellectually existential pulse that is prominent in the source material. can understand the changes made in the films wanting to make this a morally complex, twisty mystery, but also one that would be digestible and entertaining horror flick for the common moviegoer without anything too complex. in disregarding the core roots of what made Sadako and the ring what they are, majority of the films play it a bit safe. This can often be the case where the book is much darker and the films draw a line not fully willing to venture into those more complex waters. While this is where most of the powerful parallels lie, don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy the films, particularly the 95 ring 98 spiral and the 2002 remake, the latter which was quite a strong remake, bridging the path of using the source material as a framework and forming its own path, standing pretty strong even as its own film. if this were to be resurfaced, I would love for it to dive in more fully and give a voice to what is previously been a hum at best, ideally in an anthology series allowing room for the diverse stories and multiple realities of the ring realm to be awakened and explored more fully. Well, there are two TV series in Japan. Yeah, I didn't know about that. You know, my Yeah, there's like 12 and 14 episodes each. I'd imagine they explore stories of individual victims or whatever, but I have no idea. I'm speculating. I may have said this before, but I've always had this fantasy as a filmmaker or a secret desire to take a franchise, which is considered pretty much tapped out on what more you can do with it, like the Terminator series, or even Alien or Predator or something like that, and surprised the world by writing something fresh that not only approaches the original, but surpasses it. It's like the best episode ever, and it's like the 10th installments and takes everybody off guard. That would be an interesting challenge, but I think for The Ring. That first film, the American version, is such a perfect, self-contained story. And if you were to ask me like, how would I have expanded that one? probably would have taken it somewhere similar moving it into the digital age. But I don't know, like some stories, they just, they resist expansion. it just depends on the subject matter. But would have been satisfied if there was just One Ring film, and it was the one that we made here in America, but it just such a weird engineering trick to make that work, and to have what's essentially a tragedy of a girl dying in a well, seeing that ring of light above her, how that morphs into such wild tangents that still work. But it's too far from what I originally liked about the film. So I don't, I don't know, I'm kind of resisting the idea of anything more, but I want to see spiral for sure, but maybe some of these other ones I'll explore more. Yeah. I mean, there's like little things I think you probably could add to the existing American films, but I agree. If you just take that as its own entity, it's pretty well explored in some of the haunting and creepy and the the moral elements and the the kind of ongoing terror that this creates. I think that has all been done pretty well and fairly fully. I'm thinking, I mean, I'm thinking more of the very, very expansive elements of the books, most of even again, even Sadako story, I don't think has been fully been fully told really in film version. Even the 95 version was the most accurate, but it's like they just show the event that happens. I would want more like, I think something like an anthology, whether even if you did it like every episode was something different or like a mini series even say, I would have like loved something that got more into even her perspective of that because we like never we get a lot of great moments with her, but we never really get her perspective. And there are there are a lot of moments like that. There was in the fourth book, which was an anthology, there was a Sadako story, but I was disappointed. It's from like the perspective of like, not even an extra lover. Someone just had a crush on her who's like years later is reflecting. So it's it is cool that we get a bit of like this other period of her life, but it's yeah, it's still not her perspective. But there was another story within that where the you watched. Yeah. You watched at least ring you. So may the assistant. It's it's kind of her perspective on this like body horror psychological escalation degradation. That was like I thought some of the most haunting, powerful material of the entire series. So even if you could have, like, an episode of that and not I as kind of a vague about some directions it goes. But it's a very sci fi. Definitely gets into artificial intelligence and other worlds. And a lot of this was and it wasn't a stretch because that's always what it was meant, meant to be essentially. So I think there's a lot so many aspects, I think that made this material really, really interesting and engaging and just that quality of like feeling like you understand the mystery and what's happening. And it just another layer and another layer and and it didn't feel convoluted. It felt it felt very authentic and true. But it was again, very existential and philosophical. So that is always, I think again, started with the book. So that has always been a component of what this was meant to be. So I understand, you know, you want some scare factor, you want you want the films maybe wanted to focus a little bit more on the supernatural and other elements, but I think something that really merged those elements together. Well, not to mention the medical horror and like disease and especially like very, very infectious diseases is very linked to the ring where the, the movies largely went a different route than that. And not that it has to be super tied in, but like also like Covid has happened since then. And I think there's different things that within our current time in the world and our, our lives that could be that could connect even more if you had the right person or even maybe, you know, filmmaker tackles if it's different perspectives. And again, it's such, such an expansive world where like, even almost each episode could like lean a little bit more into like different subsub dramas or lift a little. I'm kind of just in my mind right now. The short lived, amazing, amazing show Lovecraft Country just kind of came into my mind, and it it was one that kind of did a really good job of that. There was some cosmic horror elements. There was some kind of traditional, more grounded human horror elements, and it really it all felt very authentic to this world that it was created. And it wasn't an anthology, it was an ongoing story. But like there was one episode that was very cosmic and almost more set in space in different dimensions, and it was fascinating and it didn't feel like a deviation of the material. And that, I mean, I can't believe it got canceled still, but it won like a ton of Emmys, like the first year that that it came out. It was just like a beautiful, very masterfully done show. So if you had something of that level, given the ring treatment, I think it could be fantastic. There is a danger, though, in taking something which is effective due to the fact that is mysterious and there's an unknown factor to it, and then explain or attempt to put forth an explanation or expansion upon what's happening that might dispel that mystery, or push things in a direction that isn't as fulfilling as whatever the person's imagination, or whatever was intriguing about that original story. And I don't again, I never read any of the books or anything, but that's one thing that I would have to be careful of is to preserve a certain level of that mystery so that there's an intriguing ness, if that's a word left for the audience to wonder about. And I think that's part of the appeal for me, is not knowing what is causing that videotape to do what it does. If somebody sat down and said, I said quantum theory XYZ this is, the theory as to why this is happening. I I'd probably be let down a bit, so I'd have to find some sort of balance if I was writing something, especially something fresh, that deviated from the books to keep mystery alive and that interesting Miss Preserved. But I don't know if there is anything else in the works. Do you know of any other movies or any parts of the franchise that are being developed in any way? No. No, not not specifically. It was interesting. There were so many even like the character. Like I would look I'm like, wait, are there more books? And there was some where like someone was just inspired by this Sadako character, for example, and just created their own book related to it. So it might be that that she is present in other forms of cultural mythology and things like that. So there seems to be a lot of different variations, but I don't think anything like I didn't see anything like, you know, in development, officially connected to the books or existing films. Well, maybe that last American movie rings kind of killed it all, Yeah. and nobody is interested in picking that up again. Or maybe they just feel like it's run its course. Yeah, I think it would need like, a revamp, at least from, from the what the American films have done. Like I think especially the first one is great in its own right, but I think continuing that could be more like beating a dead horse, sort of a thing. So I know bad probably analogy with the horse True. but yeah, I think it would almost I would like something connected to the books, but also like with the different vision that could like a reimagining sort of a thing. just days after finishing reading the ring novels, and while I was still in the midst of plunging myself into the various cinematic reincarnations of Koji Suzuki's ring legacy, the prolific author passed away. He was very highly regarded, often called Japan's Stephen King due to his influence on jaw foams and his focus on psychological tension, suspense fueled horror, and the reflections of human experiences such as grappling with mortality, loss, and loneliness within high concept horror stories, much like King. Originally, the idea for the podcast was to simply focus on the American remake, with a comparison to the 1998 Japanese film Recently, at the point where this podcast was mentioned but not fully decided on yet, I was at a bookstore scanning the horror section as one does, and a book stood out to me, with TV static covering the edges and a VHS design on the front with the title ring. I immediately read further and confirmed it was that ring, and kind of felt like it was assigned to explore the author's original vision and embark on this dissection. That book alone was an intoxicating vortex, opening up this wider ring universe, exposing me to so much more, even through a story I felt I knew quite well. It was an engrossing, provocative experience that fed my love of depth filled, interconnected horror with ample reflection on societal and human experiences, and gave me a lot more that was wholly unique to his wild genere bending, one of a kind style. Luckily, unlike some, he was celebrated for his contributions to horror and life, not just upon death, but it still fitting to recognize and honor his legacy within the I recommend fans of the American are Japanese films to at least check out the main trilogy by page, that was the original vision, the depths of the ring, the bar deeper than, could even be contained in a single well. Suzuki has noted loop the end of the original trilogy. While the series does go beyond, this is his favorite, and that is the one book that not one of the film adaptations has come even close to tackling. As much as one aspect from I, it's the one that actually has the most ties between Japanese and American modern and cultural connections. Even with the last act taking place in New Mexico, in the Mojave Desert and tapping into Native American law, being prime material to fuze the cultural influences in a revisited way, and entering the ring story by book, you will likely fill the chilling, nail biting suspense, cryptic intrigue and stripping away of safety nets among vengeful doom you felt while watching other versions of the ring, but also become consumed in the ever expanding, evasive horror with layers and tentacles that continue to reach out and equally haunt, stimulate and surprise your sense of bodily, psychological, and even intellectual terror through its exploration of the origins and rot of both medical and societal plagues. if you would like to join our Society of Grotesquerie and Loathing, subscribe now and give this podcast a like and be sure to comment your wretched thoughts below. Keep our podcast suffering on by finding it in your cold, black, withered hearts to support us on Patreon. 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