Every horror director has that awkward “high school band demo tape” phase—the project that makes you wonder how they ever got hired again. For Hideo Nakata, the man who would go on to traumatize a generation with Ring, that project is Don’t Look Up (女優霊). Imagine if The Ring had been shot in your uncle’s garage with leftover film stock, a broken fog machine, and a cast who all look like they’d rather be doing commercials for cough drops. That’s this movie.
The Premise: “Film Crew Haunted by Film”
A rookie director, Murai, is trying to shoot a period drama. His negatives start showing ghostly footage of a pale woman in white—basically the same aesthetic every Japanese horror film would ride to the bank two years later. Only here, it’s like Nakata was beta-testing the whole “long-haired wet ghost” thing and forgot to include the actual scares.
Every time the ghost appears, she laughs hysterically. Not a menacing cackle, not even a creepy giggle. Just the kind of laugh you’d hear from someone who’s had too much sake at karaoke night. It’s less “ominous specter from beyond the grave” and more “your drunk aunt heckling the wedding photographer.”
The Cast: All Cardboard, No Soul
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Murai (Yūrei Yanagi): Supposed to be a sensitive, idealistic director. Comes off more like the guy who’d fail his film school project and blame the weather. His big emotional range is frowning slightly harder.
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Hitomi Kurokawa (Yasuyo Shirashima): The “experienced actress” and object of Murai’s crush. She’s meant to radiate gravitas, but mostly looks like she’s counting the minutes until she can cash her paycheck.
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Saori Mochizuki (Kei Ishibashi): The unlucky young actress who plummets to her death. Her big character arc? She dies early and leaves us with even fewer reasons to keep watching.
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Ren Osugi as the cinematographer: You’d think an actor of his caliber could save this mess, but even he looks like he’s calculating how many Roman Porno films he could’ve been paid for instead.
The Ghost: Discount Sadako
You know the rules: long hair, white dress, unsettling stare. Except here, she’s neither scary nor coherent. She photobombs the dailies, repeats lines like a broken answering machine, and shows up in mirrors like a department-store fitting room demon.
At one point, she straight-up stalks the lead actress in a scene. Terrifying? No. It looks like she’s auditioning for a toothpaste commercial and wandered onto the wrong set. If Sadako is the Michael Jordan of Japanese horror ghosts, this one is the guy playing horse at the YMCA gym.
The Deaths: OSHA Violations with Extra Steps
Saori dies from horsing around on the rigging and falling. Later, the replacement actress gets “possessed” and has a freakout that looks more like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Every other crew member just…complains and eventually runs away.
The ghost doesn’t claw, bite, or curse. She just laughs and sort of…menaces the camera. The scariest injury in the film is probably someone pulling a hamstring running off set.
Murai’s Romance: A Cringe Subplot
Murai pines for Kurokawa like a mopey film student who writes poetry about unwashed coffee mugs. His flirting style? Staring at her like he’s been hypnotized, then stammering about the ghost ruining his footage. Smooth. Nothing says romance like, “Hey, I think a supernatural entity is going to kill you, but also…wanna get dinner?”
Production Values: Haunted by Poverty
This movie was filmed on Nikkatsu’s abandoned stages, and boy, does it show. Half the sets look like someone left the lights on in an abandoned K-Mart. The “film within a film” is supposed to be a period drama, but the costumes look like they were rented from a community theater’s clearance bin.
Sound design? If you enjoy long stretches of silence punctuated by random shrieks and static, congratulations: this is your ASMR nightmare. The ghost’s laugh is looped so often it feels like the editor fell asleep on the “repeat” button.
The Pacing: Death by Ennui
If you think Ring is slow-burn horror, Don’t Look Up is slow-burn with no fire at all. Entire minutes pass with Murai staring at screens, actors rehearsing badly, or people standing in hallways debating whether the ghost is real. By the time something happens, you’ve either fallen asleep or started wishing the ghost would just kill everyone so you could go home.
The Themes: Horror Movie About Horror Movies That Isn’t Horrifying
Nakata tries to make a clever meta-horror: ghosts haunting a film crew, cursed footage infecting the negatives. In theory, it’s a cool idea. In practice, it’s like watching a director’s student thesis stapled to a low-budget soap opera.
Instead of dread, we get mild irritation. Instead of exploring the boundary between fiction and reality, we get, “Hey, maybe the ghost is real? Nah, let’s keep shooting anyway.” It’s like The Blair Witch Project if the cast refused to stop filming because they already paid the deposit on the camera rental.
The Climax: Murai Gets Dragged
The big finish has Murai rushing to protect Kurokawa, only to get dragged away by the ghost while she cackles like she just remembered a dirty joke. That’s it. Roll credits. No resolution, no revelation, just “haha gotcha.” It’s the cinematic equivalent of a prank phone call.
The Aftermath: Why This Exists
Don’t Look Up tanked in Japan, but somehow managed to inspire Nakata to make Ring. So in a twisted way, we owe this dumpster fire for giving us one of the most influential horror films of the 1990s. It’s like thanking food poisoning for inspiring you to finally clean out your fridge.
It also spawned a 2009 English remake by Fruit Chan, which proves Hollywood will literally remake anything, no matter how irrelevant, as long as it involves ghosts and cameras.
The Verdict: Don’t Look Down, Either
Don’t Look Up is a horror movie without scares, a ghost story without ghosts, and a meta-commentary without commentary. It’s more boring than terrifying, more confusing than chilling. Watching it feels like being haunted by your own bad life choices.
Yes, it’s historically important for inspiring Ring. But that’s like saying a stubbed toe is important for inspiring you to wear shoes.
