The Ocean Rages

Why do Japanese horror movies involve girls with creepy black hair near watery places? Let me tell you!

Japan’s 1998 Ring (Ringu) film, directed by Hideo Nakata, based on the 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki, follows the story of a reporter chasing the mystery of a cursed videotape that kills it’s viewers 7 days after they view it.

Ring utilizes the vengeful Japanese yūrei archetype. These are spirits who are barred from a peaceful afterlife.

In traditional Japanese beliefs, every person has a soul or spirit called a reikon. When you die your reikon enters purgatory to wait, while your loved ones perform your funeral and post funeral rites. If the rites aren’t performed, or a person died in a violent way, or was holding on to some strong emotion in death, like revenge or jealousy, the reikon transforms into a yūrei.

The yurei will persist in haunting on Earth until the proper funeral rites are performed, or their internal conflict resolves the strong emotion that attached itself on the physical plane.