Ackland Film Forum: “Ring” (Hideo Nakata, 1998)

Ring
Dir. Hideo Nakata, 1998

Co-sponsored by Carolina Asia Center and presented at the Nelson Mandela Auditorium, FedEx Global Education Center, 301 Pittsboro St, Chapel Hill

Introduced by Chapel Hill Film Society

This small, modestly budgeted Japanese film caused an international sensation and inspired countless sequels, remakes, and rip-offs. Produced before “viral video” was a concept in our digital era, Ring concerns a VHS tape that enchants and curses anyone who watches it, marking them for death. As a spectator, one feels almost physically exposed to the contagious media within the film by virtue of our perceptual relationship to the screen. Far more interesting than its over-the-top American remakes, Ring makes use of low-key atmospheric stimuli, slowing the pace and thinning out the expressive field so that the mere sound of wind or the crack of a doorway from offscreen raises the hair on your neck. Taking inspiration not only from Japanese ghost story traditions but also from Western films such as The Innocents, The Haunting, and Poltergeist, this film is one of the standouts of the decade, a must-see that launched “J-horror” as a global phenomenon.

This Fall’s Ackland Film Forum series, Nineties Flashback, is presented by the Ackland Art Museum and the UNC Film Studies Program, part of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of English and Comparative Literature. Tonight’s screening is sponsored by the Carolina Asia Center.

Doors open at 6:45 p.m.

All Ackland Film Forum screenings are part of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Campus Life Experience program. Scan the QR code at the event for CLE credit.