© Alex Apple, 2003.

Hair finding well scenes from Ringu, The Ring Virus, and The Ring.

In the well. Reiko / Rachel find Sadamara's hair; and then Sadamara finds them and grabs each of them.

Another direct lift from The Ring Virus (left) as Eun-Suh's face turns (somewhat unconvincingly) into a skull. Echoed directly in The Ring in the decomposition scene in the well; only this time, with added CGI.

A common feature to all three original movies in the well scene is that the female lead is very much a mother figure to the skeletal remains of the demon. All three cradle her, stroke her hair, and comfort her.

And so it begins. Sadako / Samara has climbed out of the well, and walks towards the doomed male lead. The TV has sprung on of its own accord. Both Reiko and Rachel are ringing their ex; Ryuji picks it up (his last thought is of Asakawa); Noah just ignores the thing. Way to go, No.

A trio of lurching video demons emerging from their respective wells. Ringu (left); The Ring Virus (right); The Ring (centre)

As she walks further from the well, Sadako / Samara / Eun-Suh gets increasingly clearer until the point she is ready to climb out of the screen. Interestingly, in the US remake, Samara looks both older and as if she is still in the video; she flickers in and out of focus and retains the colouring and TV interlacing of the video. In the original movies, the demon that emerges is much more concrete. Is Verbinski hinting that it's not really Samara emerging from the TV, but rather a manifestation of her?

The shot. Right arm down on to the floor, leaning forward. Bad things are about to happen.

All 3 movies show ripped out fingernails in the well. As Sadako / Eun-Suh / Samara lurches her way towards her final victim of the film, we see exactly the damage that was caused as she tried to claw her way back to the top. Samara, interestingly, continues to emit water as she moves, something not shown in the other two movies.

Crawling towards the victim. Samara is oozing (well?) water, uniquely in the three films.

Sadako's appearance. Ring 0 has the best shot of all the original movies of the wall of hair that Sadako hides behind. This is very much emulated in The Ring. The Ring Virus, of course, takes a slightly different tack in that of the other two interpretations and presents Eun-Suh as still a very feminine figure, her face only slightly hidden by her long hair.

Not long to go now... Sadako and Samara get their final victim of the movie in her sights. Samara is strangely older in this scene than in the rest of the movie.

The eye: Sadako, Eun-Suh and Samara. It's the look that kills her victims. The Ring Virus approach (top right) is clearly consistent with that movie's director's intention to produce a more mystical rather than scary picture.

Ryuji and Noah's death mask. Ryuji frozen in the scream, while Noah's face is far more reminiscent of the photos of forthcomeing victims in both Ringu and The Ring.

Just as Mai destroys Masami's tape in Ring 2, Rachel destroys her original in The Ring. Then she burns it for good measure.

From Ring 2, left, the remains of a burned tape found by the police in Ryuji's bathtub. Rachel decides to destroy her original on her ornamental gas fire. That can't do it any good at all. She'll have to get the gas man in now...

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