Ringu -- 1998 -- NR

This is a Japanese movie, and so not subject to review by the MPAA. I would put the rating at a PG-13 for shocking and/or disturbing images. Ringu is the Japanese version of the American film, The Ring.

Students who watched a cursed video die a week later all at the time. A reporter tries to unlock the mystery of their deaths and upon watching the video herself, also becomes subject to the one week curse. This film has good pacing, a creepy atmosphere, and decent characterizations. Their search for the truth encountered very few roadblocks, though, and seemed pretty easy to get through to the end once they were able to piece it all together. The seven day time frame, while continually immenent, seemed almost non-threatening and just "there" like staring at a timebomb as it ticks down.

A bigger beef I have is the odd psychic element. I had a similar complaint with Audition, so this might just be a "thing" for Japanese films. Much of the expository information they gained was done through intuition or psychic "flashes" by the characters who acknowledged these abilities as something they had right when they needed it.

This aside, it is a good film to watch, if for no other reason than to see where the Ring came from. Another point of interest is that while Audition was a film in Japanese with no other indicator of any other culture, Ringu is a Japanese film complete with apparent cultural idiosyncrasies specific to the Japanese. It was kind of neat to watch.

Rasen -- 1998 -- NR

This is the original sequel to Ringu, but when it tanked in Japan, the company made Ringu 2. Some like this movie, and some hate it for a variety of reasons. Most of the haters don't like it because it is barely the same genre of movie that Ringu is; rather than supernatural horror, this film is more of a scienific thriller, and believe me, that's a big jump.

Instead of creepy scary Sadako, Rasen has creepy sexy Sadako, whose spirit visits the main character, Dr. Ando, after he watches the cursed videotape and apparently wants to have sex with him. He and his science buddies are interested in finding a scientific explanation for how the tape kill people, and through finding a copy of the tape and a journal left by Reiko from Ringu, they are able to reconstruct the first film and move on to their studies. Dr. Ando believes his mission is to destroy the tape so no one else dies, and also to give him an opportunity to kill himself, since he is depressed over the loss of his son. It was a nice start with some creepy moments.

From here, it gets really convoluted, and this is just me judging it as a movie, not as a sequel. Through their studies, they believe that (and stay with me) by watching the video, your body picks up the DNA sequencing of a virus and the body constructs this virus which kills you. Reiko was an accomplice to Sadako (which is why she didn't die) and her notebook also contains said virus but a mutation of it. Sadako wants to return to the world, so when she comes to Dr. Ando after he watches the video, she gives him her DNA so when he sleeps with Mai (Ryuji's girlfriend from the Ringu), Sadako's DNA is passed onto her to grow in the womb and be reborn, not as 100% Sadako, but as a Sadako/Mai, both women's memories existing in Mai's new body reborn from old Mai who was killed or died or something. Sadako/Mai strikes up a deal with Dr. Ando to take his son's DNA and let his son be reborn through her if Ando will also do the work to let Ryuji be reborn through her too. (Insert long tedious scientific and psychic explanations to get it all to make sense)

The final idea of the story is Sadako wants everyone to feel her fear so they're going to publish Reiko's journal so everyone can read it, get the mutated virus, feel her fear, and take a new step in human evolution (or something like that). The subject was so heady that I'm sure this film is a direct adapatation of the book, since no one in their right mind would write something like this directly for the screen. I think the biggest weakness was fooling the target audience of Ringu that this film was for them, and completely missing a better audience that would have appreciated it. 

In my opinion, I think if I had the time to watch it a few more times, I might finally understand it, but in a single viewing (which is how I watch most films), it contains far too much information and has to explain too much for me to say that the film just left me anything more than lost and confused. I think the explanations are way too far-fetched and one would have to suspend disbelief too far to get into the scientific reasoning behind the legendary cursed tape. And then there are those mysterious psychic powers through which so much exposition is gleaned...

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer -- 1998 -- R

This was an incredibly uneven sequel to the rather decent "I Know What You Did Last Summer" of the previous year. It starts out pretty good with Julie James being the girl haunted by what went on in the previous film. She kind of lives in fear since the body of her haunter was never found. They win a radio contest and that's when the contrivances begin. These are things that happen for the sole purpose of furthering the plot, but the chances of them happening in reality are slim to none.

We actually start with Ray's trip to meet Julie. The last word anyone got on Ray was that he's working all weekend, and yet, by some freak coincidence, the fisherman blocks his path on the highway to meet Julie. This is where the movie started to lose it and we're not even 20 minutes in. There is no way anyone could have known that Ray would be on that road at that moment. None. Not even Ray would have known that.

Julie gets a warning on a Karaoke screen. In the midst of a song, it spouts "I know what you did last summer" before blanking out. Sorry, karaoke lyrics are preprogrammed for the song. In order for this to work, the killer would have had to pick the song for Julie to sing and have reprogrammed the lyrics. Yeah...no. Spooky, but unbelievable.

I just love the way everyone yells in this one. Ty yells at Julie and makes fun of her. The weird part here is that at the beginning, Kara knows about Ben Willis and what happened the previous year. Then Julie tells the whole story and no one seems to have known about it. They are accepting at one moment, then Julie is a bad friend or something for keeping the truth to herself. Would friends completely discount the words of their friend so quickly?

Gotta love the whole "we'll go this way. Stay here; you'll be safer." Yeah, this guy's been running everywhere and one place is any safer than another? Why don't people just stick together in these movies?

And finally, the creme de la creme of stupidity: Kara jumps off a balcony and lands of the glass roof of the greenhouse. Of course, she flips out about being on this glass roof; who wouldn't? Then she performs the "my director told me to do this" move. She steps directly in the middle of a glass panels and watches it splinter under her feet. She then places her other foot right next to it. Guess what happens. If you said the panel broke under her weight and she falls into a locked building, you win the prize. An intelligent person would have had her walk on the support beams.

So, this movie failed miserably to deliver any more than an average slasher to an above average first installment. Most of what happened occurred because the plot required it. The "slicker guy" had no rhyme to his death choices and it was mainly a "kill everyone and take no prisoners" plot that is the fare of slashers. Nothing new. Nothing innovative. Just an average movie.

Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) -- 1998 -- R

While it's kind of a dumb title (the literal translation of the German title is Lola Runs), the movie is far from that as it combines some animation with lots and lots of running by the title character.

This is a fast paced, energetic film, that follows a woman who has 20 minutes to get 100,000 Marks to her boyfriend (which she has to practically generate out of thin air) to pay off a mobster or he is going to rob a store across the street from where he is waiting for her. Why does she run? Well, she had a moped, but it was stolen, which caused her to be late picking up her boyfriend in the first place, which led him to take a subway. Well, he skipped off the subway when some cops got on, and he left the bag of 100,000 Marks on the seat, and it was stolen by a homeless guy. So if they don't get this 100,000 Marks to the mobster, he will kill the boyfriend. Lola runs through the people she knows to figure out where to get 100,000 Marks on a moments notice (cause that's a lot of money), and she decides to go ask daddy, the banker. Got that? So begins the run.

The movie follows three different storylines, each with a different outcome. We start Lola's run here as she she runs down the stairs of her building and encounters a man and his dog. This encounter is different in each of the three timelines, and sets off what happens in each version. Lola runs across a variety of people on her run, and the time and circumstances of her encounter with them determines how their life goes from there (which we get as a quick series of snapshots right after Lola runs past them). Once each timeline comes to its conclusion and we get the outcome, we get a quick character moment between Lola and her man before the timeline starts over, and we get another version of what could happen if...

This is a fascinating alternate timeline sort of film that is unrelenting in its pace and energy. You hit the ground running right off (literally) and it doesn't stop until the credits roll...backwards. It begs to be unique and succeeds rather well. Through the timelines, we learn things about the characters that we are able to use in understanding things in the other timelines, though the characters, of course, don't have this privilege.

The characters aren't overly developed here, and in fact, since the film feels like a supercharged short filmed three ways, the development is sufficient to carry us through the simple storyline. This film is a rare exception in that to care about the characters, minimal development is required. We get some info about them in the beginning and then intermediary segments, but nothing really indepth.

So we have a film that attacks us with so much energy that it insists we keep up with it as it charges through its alternative storylines at break neck speed. It's a clever study that worked very well.