☆~¿ナンスナリ?~☆

I watched the 1998 movie a few years ago after buying it on dvd at the antique world mall and I liked it quite a bit. Its a real slow burn with lots of surreal cinematography and quiet, frightening moments. But before I ever watched that, I watched scary movie 3 alot, which parodies ring, but still scared me alot when I was young. Thus, the actual movie took on a legendary status in my mind. The movie follows the book quite closely, although major parts of the cursed tape were done differently in the movie, probably because the tape is a bit more graphic in the book.

I will do a skim-summary and highlight what was different.

The main character, Asakawa, is a journalist who investigates the strange death of his niece after learning of a person who died in a similar fashion. From there he views the cursed tape and has a week to carry out unspecified demands before he will die as his niece did. To help him, he enlists the help of his insane occult-psychiatrist-serial-rapist friend Ryuji, with Asakawa questioning why he is even friends with the guy. Ryuji watches the tape and is amped that he will die in seven days. The next morning, Asakawa's wife Shizuka and Yoko accidentally watch the tape as well.

I need to emphasize how creepy Ryuji is. He is a sleezy psychology professor. He's into paranormal investigation and studying the german language, and claims to have raped three women over the past twenty years. When asked what he would do if he learned the world was about to end, he replied "Dig a hole in the ground and ejaculate into it numerous times". Despite knowing all of this, Asakawa still entrusts Ryuji to check in with his wife and daughter should Asakawa die in seven days . . . with Ryuji slated to die one day after him . . . Its all okay though, they have a discussion and Ryuji promises that he would never do that to Asakawas "wife and babykin".

Asakawa is grounded and easily overwhelmed, while Ryuji has strong intuition and fears nothing. Despite how scary Ryuji is, these two do some intense bonding while having psychic ghost adventures and learn that the footage on the tape was actually captured through somebodies eyes/"minds eye", rather than a camera. They surmise that the footage was psychically projected onto the tape and eventually learn about Sadako Yamamura, the daughter of a powerful psychic, who disappeared around 25 years ago. Following this lead, they learn that Sadako herself was a psychic of immense power. The trail leads them to an aging Dr.Nagao, who they recognize from the tape, and He confesses that he raped Sadako and threw her down a well. We learn that he was thought to have had the last recorded case of smallpox, though it would seem Sadako contracted it from him, with the smallpox virus being implied as an ingredient in the spell which resulted in the deadly "cursed tape".

We also learn the Sadako Yamamura is intersex; specifically, she has "testicular feminization syndrome", which results in her having testes along with her female sex organs. What a crazy twist ! Nothing happens with that. She's just a misunderstood beautiful psychic intersex woman. This eventually leads to Asakawa thinking about a nude photo of a trans woman he once saw. He is just really perturbed.

After exorcising Sadako's bones from the well (which had a cabin built over it), Asakawa is relieved to find that he did not die at the fated time. Ryuji, thinking he is safe, parts ways, but when his fated time arrives, his hair begins falling out and he witnesses himself rapidly age in the mirror before calling his friend Mai and dying.

Mai and Asakawa talk, and Mai informs Asakawa that Ryuji is dead, and that he actually wasnt a serial rapist. Mai says specifically that "He died having never known a woman", which Asakawa takes to mean that Ryuji was actually a virgin, but which I take to mean that he is gay. Its also kind of ambiguous whether or not Ryuji is a rapist, but I believe that was almost like his front. Suddenly the "Sadako is intersex" thing feels a little less out of nowhere, if Koji Suzuki is channeling his thoughts about sexuality into this story.