Scare-a-Thon 2021 Day 17: Ringu (1998)

  Ah yes, the movie that launched a thousand memes.  I'd never actually seen the original and while I knew it was massively popular and had at least two sequels and an American remake, I had no idea exactly how popular.  According to Wikipedia, there are eight Japanese films, three English remakes, a Korean remake, two video games, six novels, seven comics, and two TV series.  

Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) is a reporter investigating the story of a viral videotape that supposedly kills the viewer in seven days.  Her niece, Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi), and four of her friends died on the same day after a trip to a resort cabin.  Asakawa finds the tape, watches it, and immediately shows it to her ex-husband (Hiroyuki Sanada), a university professor.  These two proceed to investigate the shit out of this tape, following the breadcrumbs back to a superstitious island and a long-unsolved crime.  

It's a relatively simple story, which just goes to show that you don't need a lot of bells and whistles, just a grainy VHS and a really long wig.  Truly, Sadako is such a great villain because she's implacable.  There's no bargaining, no bribery, no protection.  It puts her up there with Jason Voorhees, Michael Meyers, and Freddy Krueger, all of whom have spawned their own franchises.  It's currently streaming on Kanopy (no ads) and Tubi (ads).