When I got home from work tonight I popped in "Ringu" and I have to say, while it was still definitely scary, to me anyway, it was not as scary as "The Ring". Now I know that "Ringu" was first, but both were based on the book "Ring", so the American version is not just a remake of a foreign film, but another adaptation of a book. While there are some blatant similarities between the two movies, there were a couple things that played better for me in the American version. First, they made it more believable why these people would believe in the whole thing, although maybe Americans are more skeptical of urban legends or superstitions or something, so that may be a cultural thing (honestly, I don't know). Second, I liked in the American version that I was scared through most of the movie, but until the very end I wasn't really sure what was supposed to be the scary thing in the movie, and that meant that not only was there a twist about how to avoid death after seven days, but also there was the twist about what was the real frightening thing about the movie. In the Japanese version I liked more how they found the well, and I liked the scene in the well more (even knowing what was going to happen, I found that scarier than when I watched the American version and didn't know what was going to happen). I liked the final scene with Samara/Sadako and the TV in both versions. I liked the fingernails touch and the eye on Sadako in the Japanese version, and I liked that they didn't cut away from the scene once it started and that gave it a very scary feel. However, in the American version I did like the effects better, I thought the music added a lot, and liked what appeared to be the use of reverse photography to give it an extra creepy feel. Overall, I think both are very good horror films, and anyone who is a fan of one should see the other one. I recently read that the book has been translated into English and I plan to read that soon so I can see how the movies stack up against the book.
For everyone who's sick of me talking about this, this will most likely be my last entry on the subject for a while, so don't worry 