Empire Magazine articles 2004-2006 & J-horror

Texas Chainsaw Massacre Review by Kim Newman (2003 remake version)
"first of a wave of pointless genre remakes"
"When writer Scott Kosar and director Marcus Nispel play variations on the original, almost setting this up as a sequel rather than a remake"
"but somehow that buzzing saw doesn't sound as scary as it used to"



The Ring Review by Mark Dinning (Empire, March 2003, Mark Dinning , Page 38 )
"Lets cut right to the chase: if you've seen the Japanese original, you can knock a star straight off the four below"
"$11 million opening... overall gross of $123 million"
"undeniably Scream inspired" - so even though its a Japanese remake of a ghost story, they've 'pinched' ideas from an American slasher.
"Age-old mythology is, after all, more believable coming from the rich historical tapestry of The Land Of The Rising Sun and the land of peanut butter and Jell-o."



The Ring by Lesley O'Toole (Empire, March 2003, Lesley O’Toole, Pages 93-95)
"took the US box office by the throat"
"The ironic slasher movie had run out of nudge-nudge and wink-wink. The modern restyling of the olde worlde ghost story, as represented by The Blair Witch Project... the fresher came in the Far East"
"not only spawned the most successful horror film franchise in the film-mad country's history, but also a TV series and graphic novel."
"Verbinski surmising he has changed '50 per cent' of the original"
"Death is the only resolution in life, so we seem to want to put it in all our movies"



Chapter: J-Horror and The Ring Cycle from The Media Student's Book
"When Dreamworks released The Ring (2002), they managed both to extend the new ghost cycle and to draw on elements from earlier 'teen horror films'.
"cycle of 'demon children' and 'possession', dating from the 1970s"
"Ringu can be seen as responding to the long cycle of American 'teen' horror with its high school 'victims' and young female 'investigator heroes'"
"the long white dress, the long straight black hair masking the face - can be traced back to traditional Japanese stories from the seventeenth century and earlier,"
"The writer Suzuki Koji draws on Japanese ideas about water as a suitable 'medium' for ghosts and spirits to inhabit."
"$40 million to spend can afford spectacular effects" - so the remake loses the grungy, low budget feel that the original has/had.
"This alone may push the American film towards a more 'action-orientated' narrative."
"'gothic' look of European and American horror"
"Built on this return to the less 'gory', more psychological horror"
"Concepts of the 'supernatural' are different in East Asian cultures, partly because the Buddhist/Shintoist religions in Japan do not have such clear concepts of 'good' and 'evil'. In western stories the narrative often climaxes with evil, forces defeated by good (godly) heroes."
"Ghosts in Japanese culture are in one sense much more 'personal'. Dead characters often come back to tell things to their families."
"The American series often have victims who are killed because they have 'sinned' in some way.. but in Ju-On there is no 'justification' for the deaths."
"Dreamworks invited Nakata Hideo to remake his own Ring 2"
"Director Kim Ji-woon's A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) has been widely admired by critics and fans in the UK and is set for yet another American remake"
"The 'feminisation' of the stories to appeal more widely to young women in the cinema audience was first deemed a success in Japan, but was equally taken up in Hollywood. The Ring and The Ring 2 both feature Naomi Watts and Jennifer Connelly leads in Dark Water. These are two rising female stars and The Grudge helped to consolidate Sarah Michelle Gellar's career."
"In America they all received PG-13 ratings and in the UK '15'. This opened up a horror market traditionally limited to 'R' or '18' rated films seen as off-putting to some female audiences."



Remade In The USA by ? (Empire, August 2004, No one Credited,  Page 70)


"(The Grudge) latest in a line of Eastern horror flicks that are being turned into lavish, mainstream frightfests by US studios"
"The fad for remaking Asian horror began two years with DreamWorks' retooling of Japanese hit Ringu, The Ring."
"and some executives specifically scour all output from Japan and South Korea for remake potential"
"Dreamworks' version of The Ring out-grossed the original in Japan. Bizarrely, it seems that even in Asia there's a market for US remakes"

Dare You See Saw by Shari Roman (Empire, October 2004, Shari Roman, Page 56)

"I wanted to make something really intense that people would remember" (James Wan, Director)
"genuinely disturbing, deeply freaky piece of work"



Hostel by ?
"Quentin Tarantino called it one of the best he'd ever read" (referring to the script) coming from the guy who filmed a guy 'getting his ear cut off' as part of a torture method.0
"sickest shit I could think of" (Eli Roth on his script)



Saved By VHS (side article) by Kim Newman (Empire, April 2004, Kim Newman, Page 111)


"A Nightmare on Elm Street became a franchise thanks to video"



Empire calls 2004 the 'Year of The Dead' with Shaun of the Dead in cinemas as well as 28 Days Later. Important as zombie films were making a comeback from the 50s/60s, but more gore is added.



Saw Review by Kim Newman (Empire, December 2004, Kim Newman, Page 36)

"Ingeniously scripted"
"boasts an intricate structure - complex flashbacks-within-flashbacks"
"ghastly claustrophobia"
"squirm-inducing moments"
"As good an all-out, non-camp horror movie as we've had lately"



The Grudge Review by RF (Empire, April 2005, RF Page 156)

"continuing the trend of remaking Japanese horror hits"

The Grudge by Olly Richards (Empire, December 2004, Olly Richards, Page 42)

"The initial reaction to hearing that Takashi Shimizu has remade his own Japanese cult hit for a Western audience is: why bother?"
"came off as merely a cheap imitation of Ringu"
"The terror is upped without relying on too many cliches"



Ju-On: The Grudge Review by Kim Newman (Empire, August 2004, Kim Newman, Page 32)          
"the random curse aspect echo The Ring but many other elements: a lank-haired female ghost, obviously, follow that influential cycle. Expect a Freddy vs Jason-type Sadako vs Kayako team-up sequel"
"ingenious bone-freezing scares as genuinely terrifying spooks appear under the sheets"



The Ring Two Review by Nick De Semlyen (Empire, September, Nick De Semlyen, Page 146)

"VHS now has yet another Ring film"
"Jaws 4 approach to sequel-making" - ironic as The Ring was proven to be successful and The Grudge remake was dubbed a 'copycat' of The Ring yet the sequel to it was described like this.
"Problem J-horror genius Nakata faces is the brilliant simplicity of his original concept. Back in 1998, the idea of a cursed videotape was chilling; in 2005, it's become slightly hackneyed"