This subject has given me a unique opportunity, to experience a horror movie from another culture. My previous experience with horror movies to be honest has been pretty dull, I’ve seen the American version of the ring movies, and they were pretty terrible. Every time I watch a horror I sit there and think “is this the scary part? Is this the scary part?” and feel disappointed with the end result (which is why I don’t watch horror movies when people recommend them anymore).
For my final project I’m thinking of either doing a video of me watching the Japanese version of the Ring “Ringu” and putting an analysis in the video as well, or doing a podcast of my experience and analysing the movie. The reason that I’ve chosen to watch the ring for this project is because ive heard that “it’s really scary” and it was either watching the ring or watching the Japanese version of the grudge, which I really don’t want to do.
After watching the trailer for Ringu, my interest was heavily peaked, as opposed to the American version of the movie, I found the Japanese movie trailer really creepy, which is a good sign for a good horror movie I guess, especially that they’re making new one this year. I feel like better material will appear for this project I this movie is as scary as people keep telling me that it is (one of my ideas for this project was to turn it into a drinking game and take a shot for every jump scare that scares me or makes me jump, but I won’t do that for obvious reasons). I mainly just don’t want to be disappointed by another lame horror movie, which I can crucify in the digital artifact, but I’d rather be positive in that regard.
For this video or podcast I’m thinking of looking look at:
- My overall thought of the movie
- Did it work plot wise?
- Was it good in terms of being a good horror movie, what worked, what didn’t
- Comparing it to its American counterpart, was it better worse
- The difference in horror movie culture between the two versions of the movie
- The difference in culture in general terms
- Reading reviews of what other people thought of the two versions of the movie to get a grasp on what other people thought
Since I am an Australian university student, I am quite cheap when it comes to buying things, especially movies, so the way that I’m going to watch this movie will either through Netflix (if it’s there), another streaming site or using another method of acquiring it and watching it, and of course, watching it alone, in the dark…someone help me.
A down side for me is that I don’t really watch horror movies, as I said earlier most of them have all been pretty disappointing, for example I tried watching the Omen and that was disappointing, and when I watched the first Friday the 13th movie, I was more thrilled by the movie rather than scared by it (except for that boat scene at the end). However, I did grow up with an older sister who loved watching horror movies in her teenage years, so when I asked her if there are any Japanese horror movies I should watch aside from the ring and the grudge I got a response something along the lines of “nooope, nope nope im not watching those”. Sounds like a good excuse to break out of the American Horror movie seen if I’ve ever heard one.
A main reason I want to watch a Japanese horror movie is to see how badly American movies blow things out of proportion when it comes to horror movies with the slightly racist or sexist way nearly every single movie starts, in that a black character or women is always the first character to die in the movie, and watching a horror movie from a different culture can help me shape my understanding of the horror movie genre and maybe lead me to stop avoiding horror movies if I can. I also want to see if the Japanese horror movie genre isn’t as dependent on stereotypes and over played music to entice jump scares, or if they do it in a different way entirely.
When I watch the Japanese version of The Ring, I’m thinking of live tweeting the movie or snapchatting my way through it depending on how interesting and engaging the movie turns out to be, at least for the first viewing of the movie and then watch it a second time before putting my digital artifact together just in case I missed anything I can talk about later.
Until then, I’m going to see if I can scare the shit out of myself with some American Horror movies in preparation for this project.
Digital Asia 
I really like your post exploring the Japanese horror film industry. (So brave! I’m a scary little kitten can’t do it) There are a lot of version of The Ring, not sure if you are watching oldest one or not. You can try to talk about your own understand of horror movie from Japan and after watching the Japanese The Ring, what do you experience from that and how does that helps you understand the Japanese horror film industry or culture. I love that you are going to compare both version of The Ring. Just be sure find the original one with no other plot added. I know there are a lot other The Ring, like The Ring 3D, The Ring vs The Grudge.
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