Ringu (lost "Brussels cut" of Japanese horror film; existence unconfirmed; 1998)

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The open mouth effect as it appears in the definitive (arguably lone) cut of Ringu.

Status: Existence unconfirmed

Date found: N/A

Found by: N/A


According to a number of unproven eyewitness accounts, when Hideo Nakata's 1998 cult classic Ringu was shown at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film in 1999 (for its European premiere), an alternate cut (significantly more graphic than the definitive cut we see today) was screened, never to be shown again.[1]

Dubbed by fans as the "Brussels cut", the alleged alternate version of the film is said to contain a much more disturbing open mouth effect, wherein the victims' mouths were noticeably vertically deformed (as they were, coincidentally, in the film's 2002 remake, The Ring).

Director Hideo Nakata, when asked about the possibility of an alternate cut of Ringu in a 2005 interview, denied having any knowledge of said cut, though this has not hindered supposed witnesses from testifying to its legitimacy. While most people have passed off the "Brussels cut" as nothing more than an urban legend, the sheer number of people who have come forward claiming to have seen it is too significant for others to deny, preferring to believe that either Hideo Nakata was, for some reason, attempting to hide its existence, or that someone other than him had tampered with the cut before it was screened.

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