Unlike many horror fans, I was not too impressed with The Ring (2002). As the story of a possessed video that once watched curses the viewer to death by a demonic spirit, the film is more interested in conveying a sense of dread than it is in creating bloody spectacles. And while I’m not necessarily against that approach in horror, I just never found the essential horror being explored all that compelling. And so it was with very little expectation that I went into a viewing of Ringu (1998), the Japanese film that The Ring remade. What I discovered is that watching these two films as companion pieces instead of as individual films yields a much more interesting commentary on the connection between community and monstrosity.
