Dark Water was horrible as well. No scares, no... Nothing.

The current American style tends to be influenced by the music-video era and now also social media, which is why most remakes are hyperedited crapfests and why shaky cam persists.

When they Americanize these movies they lose the foreign aspect that helps with the horror situation. So few are able to establish a correct and similar horror mood. Only The Ring, at least to me, is equal to the original.

To me The Ring was more entertaining than Ringu, but the scary parts wasn't as scary.

I didn't mind "Oldboy," although not a horror movie. There are rare examples where a reake can work, but I think the cultures are too different, as well as US remakes being bright and vibrant, Asian cinema has a knack of giving a moody, grimy look that adds to the fear factor.

After seeing The Ring much more recently, I think I like The Ring just a tad more. I like how Rachel has to do all the research rather than some stupid psychic shit, and the longer running time added to the film's scope.

I know, that this is a rather old thread, but still I couldn't avoid this topic,considering how many asian horrors I saw recently.Few years ago, I would completely agree with the statement that remakes are usually much more worst than originals(with exceptions, of course). But recently I watched the last two parts of ju-on, and I must admit that some bad remakes were better than those two films. I still like Korean horrors, but the grudge and original japanese ju-on were one of my first horrors which scared me without showing too much blood and without screamers, that's why current situation with japanese horrors makes me really sad.

I watched Ring and Ring 2 before Ringu and Ringu 2 and I wasn't scared by any of it. Think I might've watched them the wrong way round though. Either way, I like all of them. I also have The Sleeping Bride, but I've not seen that yet.

i don't think american remakes of foreign movies work because while also being a lazy cash grab they also don't take into account the cultural differences. i mean what one culture finds scary is different from what another finds scary and sometimes it doesn't translate well. there is a look that is associated with american remakes of Asian movies and most people find it bland at this point because in america we don't have the same ghost stories and legends and the same images don't mean the same things to us. if you don't understand why a thing is menacing then making a movie about it doesn't really work. it just ends up a boring mess. i like the idea of different cultures borrowing from each other and i think a few remakes ended up okay but for the most part there is not a respect and honest cultural exchange happening it's just a cheap attempt to make a quick buck off the fact that most people have not seen a movie that only came out in a country on the other side of the world. ::devil::

I don't mind remakes, The Ring was by far better than Ringu, and The Grudge was better than Ju-on: The Grudge as well, aside from the crawling-down-the-stairs-scene, that scene was done better in the original. However, Japanese movies are usually creepier/scarier because they rely on atmosphere rather than jump scares.