Rings: The demonic Samara returns!

Vengeful ghosts, check. Long stringy black hair, check. Impossible physical gymnastics, check. Cursed videos, check.

Apart from anime, if there is one thing that Japanese filmmakers are really good at, it is their treatment of the horror genre. These low-budget shockers tend to focus more on subtle dread – enough to keep you up at night in a cold sweat – as opposed to gratuitous gore and have a cult-following around the globe with hard-core disciples.

But one film from this particular lot turned out to be more notorious than the rest, Ringu. For years, you had to have a black-market connection to get a copy of the video in lots of places, but then Hollywood decided to make it mainstream and The Ring was born.

The Ring was notable for being the first American remake of the Japanese-horror classic and was a rip-roaring success at the box office.

So Tinseltown did what it does best and made a franchise out of it. The sequel was a critical disaster but still made a lot of dough for the studio. So naturally, a third instalment was a given. The only surprising thing is that it took 15 years for this to happen.

Seemingly bearing no direct connection to either of the two previous parts, and with no Naomi Watts in it, the third chapter in the horror franchise, Rings, is a reboot.

As far as the premise is concerned, we all know the drill. You watch a video, you get a call from a kid that you only have seven days to live and people die if you don’t particularly do.

Judging by all the previews that are available online, Rings is staying true to its roots by employing all the conventional Japanese-horror tropes: Vengeful ghosts, check. Long stringy black hair, check. Impossible physical gymnastics, check. Cursed videos, double check.

So if you still haven’t had enough of the aforementioned, the black and white video – now available to view online – returns with the demonic Samara in a week’s time.