I had never had much interest in The Ring or its Japanese predecessor, mentally sorting it with the fleet of foreign horror imports and adaptations that all came around the same time. When our own Doc Rotten included it as part of his October Horror Extravaganza, my interest piqued a bit. After all, he included some pretty iconic and memorable horror movies on his list, so maybe Ringu was better than... 

In the long list of sub-genres that define the HORROR MOVIE, the ghost movie and the haunted house movie are decidedly different and very much alike. You can certainly have one without the other; but, most of the time, you’re treated with both. There are examples of one over the other. In classic literature, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has its share of ghosts but there’s no real haunted house....