Joyû-rei

I really enjoyed this debut by Ring director, Hideo Nakata. If you've seen Ring beforehand then you'll be familiar with the style and idea of this flick. It's got a subtle spookiness about it that works better than the constant (and predictable) stingers that infest most mainstream movies of this genre. If you like films that give you the chills, then you will probably like this one. A good, creepy debut by Hideo Nakata. 8/10

For his first ever debut this film has some riveting and chilling moments. In the best horror film fashion the pit of your stomach tightens every moment during this film. The ending is superb. The makers of Blaire Witch obviously watched this film it's ending wasn't an end but a beginning of the end. A great movie and only a piece of Japan's great as far as scare factor a perfect score it makes you think and scared out of your mind.

Second feature film from the man who would go on to make The Ring and Dark Water, indeed his very first film if you exclude, as I see IMDb do, a 'pink'. but first or second it is a great effort and if it doesn't totally succeed it certainly has some very creepy moments and is breaking new ground for a ghost film. He is already using the media, ghostly images appear superimposed upon the film he is using to shoot a melodrama, and utilising the long haired maniacal girl/ghost image. Modest running time exactly in accordance with the requirements of the story; if only all directors would go short if the story did not warrant more. A little confusing now and again because Mr Nakata does not lay everything out that obviously but well worth catching.

This film is great at putting ideas into the viewer's subconscious. The whole simple idea of the story is great, by having the characters shoot a film such that the viewer almost feels like they are separated from the characters and in tune with the supernatural. Since you are watching people making a movie investigating another movie, it brings you into the action, as if the same things could happen to you. The blandness of some scenes on the surface is really fun when contrasted against the supernatural events that happen later. An example is a line where the director tells the actress not to "look down" when saying her lines, when she really shouldn't be "looking up" later when she encounters the ghost. One of the most interesting things about this movie is that you wouldn't even think this was a ghost story in some scenes until you realize the context it is in. Definitely this is one of the best ghost detective stories, it has an almost meditative nature and makes the movie more scary. The over the shoulder scenes of the ghost are very scary, partly because the movie often shows people filming from the opposite angle, so you are actually watching them film, scenes in which you could become the ghost. By concentrating on the existence of the ghost, the whole movie becomes more scary.

Not on the same level as Ring (or Ring 2) but still a good Japanese horror flick nonetheless. I wish North American horror producers would take a page out of the Japanese horror template and put more 'spookiness' and less cheap shocks in their flicks. Lots of good examples in this one, scenes where a whited out face is scene staring behind a young actress, photographs on a wall are suddenly glimpsed smiling, just for a second, and more. Worth checking out if you like the genre.