After watching this film last night on Sundance, I realized that much of Nakata's style was first done in this film. Here we have many of the same elements of the RINGU series, especially the idea of the media being the source of the supernatural. Instead of the cursed videotape, we instead having a haunted studio and strange images appearing on film. In fact, the strange images appearing on film brings immediately the cursed videotape in RINGU to mind. The only thing missing was the obsession to water that runs through Nakata's later films. The final scenes are quite chilling, with a bit of a nod to Murnau, what with the door opening by itself ands the ghost entering the room, reminds me immediatly of
NOSFERATU. A chilling movie that will make think twice about going up to a catwalk.