Movie Review: THE RING VIRUS (1999)

Wow...haven't done one of these for a while, but I watched something tonight that I really wanted to mull over a bit, figure out what exactly was it that I didn't like...that and I want to get back to writing reviews. I should write one for Mahakaal: The Monster, which I saw last night.

Anyway, when I first saw Ringu (1998), the amazing film directed by Hideo Nakata based on the amazing novel by Koji Suzuki, it was probably 1999 or 2000. It was a bootleg VHS we’d rented from an art house video store so the quality wasn’t the best and we were watching it in broad daylight.

And it scared the crap out of us.

Before you spit your drink of choice all over your computer, just know that I don’t scare easily. I make horror films, for cryin’ out loud. I’ve been watching them since I was six. But there was something so compelling about this film and how Nakata-san handled the material (which, let’s face it, could have easily veered off into Velveet-landia) that I was completely enthralled and I honestly did not sleep that night. It probably didn’t help that I had a television at the foot of my bed.

The Ring Virus (1999) is almost exactly like the Japanese film. It’s about a young female journalist named Sun-Joo who starts investigating the mysterious deaths of her niece and three of her friends seven days after watching a videotape while at a resort. She finds the tape and discovers that it places a curse on whoever watches it that they will die in seven days if they don’t -- and then you don’t know what will break the curse because some damn fool’s recorded something over the most crucial bits of information.

As the film progresses, she gets a young man -- in the Korean version he’s a stranger whom she contacts only after she’s seen the video, but in the original film it’s her ex-husband -- and her daughter -- another deviation from the original film -- involved as they both see the video and are cursed.

Eventually, they track Eun-Suh (the Korean Sadako / Samara) back to where it all began: the well underneath the room at the resort where she planted the images on the videotape using telekinesis. They find her remains and give her body a proper burial. If this had originally been made anywhere else, that’s probably where the story would end, but in a brilliant twist, that’s not at all what Eun-Suh / Sadako / Samara wanted. She wants the WORLD to feel her pain and her anguish. Our pretty young journalist is spared because she made a copy of the video for her compatriot and because he didn’t propagate Eun-Suh’s virus, if you will, Eun-Suh came out of the television and killed him with fear.

The journalist figures it out and takes her VCR with her when she goes to pick up her daughter from her parents’ house where she will make her daughter copy the tape and pass it on...to her grandparents.

It’s interesting to see the subtle (and not so subtle) changes between all three films and how much they differ from Suzuki-san’s novels, particularly in the realm of gender. Sadako (novel) / Eun-Suh is what is now referred to as an “intersexed” person; or a hermaphrodite, possessing the genitalia of both a man and a woman. The Korean version is a little more interested in sex than the Japanese one. Neither the Japanese nor the American versions of the film touched upon her condition or the incest / rape.

In the novel, Asakawa (the main protagonist) is male. In each of the three films, they made the character a woman. I read somewhere that the Japanese producers felt that a woman would appeal more to the box office and to have a love story so, voila! sex change! In the Asian versions of the film (moreso in the Korean one than the Japanese one), she’s whiny and marginally useless, constantly told by the male protagonist to calm down and to use her head.

The male protagonist in the Korean version takes the whole thing almost too lightly, delighting in the “game” of it all. I desperately missed the slow burning intensity of the wonderful Hiroyuki Sanada who played Asakawa’s ex-husband in the original Japanese film.

Technically, this flick was just as fabulous as the original. The cinematography was great (I have to note here that I watched the Tai Seng special edition and it looked like it had been mastered from a VHS or VCD. It added a special touch to the film, made it look like I was watching a bootlegged version, but I don’t think that was the intention) and a special mention must be made of the score and sound effects. Both were excellent!

The only problem I had with this version is that it lacked the intensity, the punch, of the original Japanese film. The score, the sound effects, the cinematography, the acting and direction, they were all great, but they weren’t utilized to their full potential and at the end, I felt kind of deflated and disappointed.

There was no tension, no fear, nothing in the male protagonist’s final moments. It’s like they took their time with the whole film trying to craft something more than just a heartless ripoff, and when they got to what should’ve been the big payoff (Eun-Suh climbing out of the well and through the television) they said, “Let’s just get this over with, this is stupid...” Even the American remake had more oomph to it. It was good and worth seeing if you’re a completionist like me, but if you haven’t seen Ringu or The Ring, I wouldn’t make this your first sojourn into the world of Sadako. See Ringu, then The Ring. Read at least the first book.

The Ring Virus trailer:


SIDENOTE:
This summer, as is the traditional time of releasing horror films in Japan, SADAKO 3D (written by Koji Suzuki!!1!!) comes out. We'll probably never get it over here, but I wants it, precious. Oh, how I wants it.

A little bit about my new short film, Stella Buio.

I've started an IndieGoGo campaign for my new short film Stella Buio. It's a 70s Italian horror throwback about a medium who reconnects a family to their loved one quite literally as she brings him back from the dead to wreak havoc on them.

I didn't want to say too much about my cast just because I am superstitious about revealing names before I have their scenes in the can, but I feel like I can (and should) go ahead and post: I've cast my good friend Chris Cline as Philip, the deceased loved one. He played the Priest in my films A Hammer Fell in Jerusalem: Anathema and A Hammer Fell in Jerusalem: and be at rest. Shawn McBee, whom I've known since high school, will be one of Philip's family members. I've also cast Melanie Robel as the lead protagonist, Julie. She's an up and coming actress and came to me highly recommended; I'm so glad she agreed and I can't wait to work with her! Finally, the big news: legendary Scream Queen Linnea Quigley will be the title character, Stella Buio!

*Kermit flail*

Also joining me on this epic quest are Bonni Reid, who will be doing my poster art, Wheat, as my gaffer, and my brother Shawn Bowen will be handling the Fabio Frizzi-inspired score!

My film JustUs has been accepted to the Sarasota Film Festival!

Geez louise...I haven't posted since late last year! I wanted to start blogging more and maybe now is a good time to start as I have some cool news to share.

JustUs has been accepted to the Sarasota Film Festival!

As I said on my Tumblr (yeah, I have a Tumblr): If you're a filmmaker who doesn't live in New York City or Los Angeles, chances are that you know what it's like to have the hometown film festival reject your film. You could be accepted to every festival you applied to, but when the hometown rejects it, you feel like a pariah of some sort. I've sent my work to the Sarasota Film Festival three times now and apparently the third time is the charm because this year, JustUs has been accepted to the Sarasota Film Festival! They're not big on horror here, this is mainly a community for retirees, but the ones that make waves at Sundance and Toronto tend to make their way to this festival.

Now, I still feel like a pariah here because I work in horror and don't give a crap about being famous or most of the stuff that seems to drive our local "film industry." And some interactions I've already had about the festival leave me un-encouraged about staying here. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to live in L.A. either. I always have a great time when I'm there and I love (and miss) my L.A. family, but I don't think I could live there (and maintain what's left of my sanity.) And I haven't even gotten into how expensive it is to live there.

However, I live here right now and I'm going to continue to make the best of it, and complain about it as well, until I'm no longer a resident. :D

Okay, now, the reason I have a Tumblr: I originally wasn't going to get one. I mean, let's be realistic, I haven't been keeping up on this blog very well as it is. But, I was asked by the heads of Curio Media, Inc. to post relevant news to their Tumblr and I had to start learning somewhere, right? So I got one for myself. My prose work has never been particularly flowery unless I'm going for a certain effect -- I think this is due to the economy of words necessary to write screenplays -- and Tumblr isn't designed for long rambly posts so it fits me and my style; however, I will work on posting here more.

I've been interviewed by Dread Central's HorrorChick and Mangled Matters' Justin Hamelin recently. My interview with TheHorrorChick was for Dread Central's Indie Horror Month. And my interview with Justin Hamelin is for his Women in Horror blog.

Here's the teaser for JustUs:


I have a lot more to post, but I think this is good for now. :D

2011

It’s December 30. One more day of 2011 remains.

This year saw my first full year as an former projectionist for Regal Cinemas, the creation of my companies, my first trip ever to L.A., and the creation of a new music video and two short films. I co-presented the west coast premiere of a film made by and featuring one of the people I admire the most in the whole world and got to work with another person whom I also admire just as much. I spent some quality time with my family and friends (though it never feels like enough, does it?) I've tried harder than ever this year to work past my intense introversion and plan on doing even more next year to get past it. Be Nancy! ;D

Next year will see more short films, more music videos, and my first feature. I'll be heading to Vancouver, Canada, in a couple of weeks because aftershock is playing at Curio Presents Viscera Film Festival. Curio is headed by a friend I made this year, Karen, who is like my horror soul-sistah. February sees me back in L.A. and July sees me in San Diego. And who knows where else I'll get to go and what else I'll get to see and do this coming year!

Please be safe on this, our last weekend of 2011, and continue to be safe well into 2012.

See you on the flip side!

Been some crazy busy times here at Kimyoo Aitch-Queue...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! You have no idea how grateful I am for pretty much everything, especially this past year and a half or so. So many things to be thankful for...

My silence of late was more because I had lots to talk about, but didn't want to say too much. I still have a lot of stuff going on that I can't talk about yet, but I can say this: it's official, Kimyoo Films is now Kimyoo Films, Inc.! Yep, I've taken a giant step forward. two of them, actually, because I've made a sister company for it: Nightbird Studios, Inc.!

Here's the distinction: Kimyoo Films is my baby. It's been with me since 1995 when I decided to name my company after the Japanese word for strange. But, by calling it "Films" I limit its scope, in a sense. Nightbird Studios is for everything else that I have interest in: podcasts / radio shows (I'm talking horror shows here, not awesome podcasts like what my friends Noel (his blog which lists every podcasts he's doing, zomg, Jaye and Tony (who have Zombie vs. Shark), and Miguel (who has Monster Island Resort) do,) comic books, novels, video games...stuff like that. The film festival, when I start it up again, will be under Nightbird Studios and not Kimyoo Films. Hallowscreen isn't about me, it's about the films so I don't even want it to look like it's going to be the "Kimyoo Films Show starring Kimyoo Films!"

I have lots and lots of plans and lots and lots of ideas, but filmmaking comes first and first up is the short film I promised to the Fies sisters for I Hate L.A., Too. This film is slightly more complicated than my past stuff in that I want to film in a business that no one I know owns or even works there. Do to that safely for all parties requires insurance. Well, if I'm going to go through all that, I should be able to get a permit...and if I'm going to get a permit, I might as well go ahead and make Kimyoo Films a corporate reality. It took a lot longer than I had anticipated because I wanted to have the film done a couple of months ago. Ah well, you live and learn. After that film is shot, cut, and on the circuit, I plan on shooting at least one or two more shorts as I prepare for my first feature. I'm hoping to spend half of December and all of January writing another draft of the feature in order to shoot it late next year.

On a side note, it's always easier to ask for funding if you have a fully legal, operating corporation! :D

As I move forward on these projects, I'll be posting more when I CAN post.

And now, to round off this post, some great news! JustUs was accepted to the Little Terrors Film Festival in Toronto for their December edition (date and time to follow) and aftershock has been accepted to Bad Granny's Bazaar's Free Film Night in Oklahoma City on January 26, 2012 as part of Viscera!

JustUs WON at Creative Loafing's Reel Terror Film Festival! :D

Last night, my film JustUs won Best Faux Radio Broadcast at Creative Loafing's Reel Terror Film Festival in Tampa! A near-the-hometown award at a near-the-hometown screening!!

In my inimitable way, I'm sure I looked like a complete prat on stage when I went up to get the award...I hope I said the right words and they came out making some semblance of sense. I'm sure I forgot to thank people so... Huge thanks go out to the Creative Loafing group for liking my flick and giving it an award, my cast and Janine for helping me make it, Kristin Mellian and Aaron Pushkar for giving me incredible radio sweepers, and, of course, the wonderful Brinke Stevens for lending her voice and talents for the DJ, Sheryl Black!

I'll keep checking to see if they have a piece up soon about the festival.

Also...I just discovered that JustUs was REVIEWED on Ain't It Cool News! (click the link and scroll down until you see my trailer. :D )

"Director Lori Bowen shows restraint and patience in this pretty straightforward revenge snippet involving a rapist/murderer released on a technicality, a woman in white, and a room filled with plastic. The tone is pretty heavy and the camera work is done with a talented hand. Definitely a good and terrifying treat that only takes six minutes to unfold." -- Mark L. Miller (AmbushBug), Ain't It Cool News

The Thing

I haven’t written a review for a while, but tonight I watched The Thing and wanted to get this out. It's 3:17 in the morning so please pardon any overt typos... :D

My main issue with remakes is that they’re written by people who don’t understand or have the same motivation for writing or making the new film as the originators. Rarely is a remake undertaken with true passion for the subject and in horror, it seems that most remakes are written by fans who want nothing more than to leave their mark on their favourite franchise (witness how lovingly the Elm Street remake writers poured over Freddy’s backstory and left the rest of the characters, especially Nancy Holbrook, whose model, Nancy Thompson, was written for a specific reason and with purpose, out to dry...but I digress.)

I know The Thing in theatres right now is purported to be a prequel and not a remake. I call it a premake. It’s taking the bare bones of the first remake (yes, it’s a remake, I’ll get to that later, I’m sure), adding a few new characters, and follows through to the end, but it has a higher budget and what some people believe are “better effects.”

Let’s be honest here, even the title gives itself away; it’s not called The Thing Begins or Before the Thing or Again with the Thing. It’s The Thing. It’s as though The Thing took John Carpenter’s The Thing and assimilated it like the characters it’s about, but there’s just something intrinsically Not Right about it. To put it in the parlance of the film, it’s imitating and it can’t help it when a big mouth bursts through its chest when the viewer starts to think: “Hey, wait a minute...”

To sum up The New Thing’s story: a team of Norwegian explorers discover a massive alien craft well below the surface of Antarctica (100,000 years down, geologically speaking) and they call in American paleontologist Kate (the wonderful Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to help dig out the craft’s pilot (which was found near the surface, by the way. 100,000 years down is a loooooong way to go, ya dig?)

Anyway, she brings it up and the head of the expedition wants to take a tissue sample before she’s cleared the block of ice as being okay to drill into. It doesn’t matter since it’s warmer in the storeroom than outside and the ice starts melting. Dun dun dun....

Chaos ensues when The Thing inevitably bursts out of the ice very dramatically and eats everyone one by one.

That right there is a huge problem. Nothing The Thing does in this film is subtle. There’s no tension, no questioning who is what is who. Once The Thing is freed, the film turns into a sort of sci-fi action slasher.

Kate figures things out way too fast, almost faster than Blair (Wilford Brimley in Carpenter’s flick). It got to the point where I thought the character had read the script and was picking the right times to tell everyone what was going on.

Would it be a spoiler to say that it had a happy ending? “But Lori,” I hear you say in my head because I’m awesome like that, “the Norwegians were all counted as dead five or ten minutes into Carpenter’s flick.” I know. The NORWEGIANS were dead.

*sigh*

They dealt with the Norwegians and tying it into Carpenter’s The Thing as an afterthought; the scenes that tie them together are cut into the credits, accompanied by the only instance of Ennio Morricone’s brilliant theme (Marco Beltrami scored The New Thing and while I liked his work on Scream, his style is way too bombastic and in your face.)

The effects...they brought in two brilliant practical effects creature guys, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr., who were Stan Winston acolytes and have done some amazing work (The Terminator, Aliens, Death Becomes Her among so many others. Go look them up on the IMDb, seriously.) Then, the majority of their work was covered in CGI. The ubiquitous They also decided to show way too much of The Thing, probably to distract the viewer from wondering about the inconsistencies.

It’s a good cast dealing with what they’ve been given to the best of their abilities, but, honestly, the American angle was only added so they wouldn’t have to film the whole thing in Norwegian thereby alienating all those who don’t want to read the movie. They might’ve had a tighter film if they’d kept the Americans out of it because, other than to propel the movie forward, they add nothing to the story. As much as I like Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the film, any other character could’ve taken on that mantle.

John Carpenter’s The Thing was taut, though breezy, playing up the “Who Goes There?” (if you’ll pardon the reference) aspect far better than even its predecessor, Howard Hawks’ The Thing From Another World. The New Thing isn’t a prequel to a Cold War science fiction flick, though, it’s a prequel to Carpenter’s The Thing. If you can’t uphold the quality and tension of the flick you’re premaking then just don’t bother.

It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good either. At least its predecessor is called John Carpenter’s The Thing, but that won’t eliminate confusion when the DVD is released. Maybe that’s a tactic Universal is banking on, all those Blu-ray units moved because some people think that it’s JC’s The Thing.

I’d say avoid.