Review(s): DVD The Ring - Collector's Edition (Widescreen Edition)
A serverly under-rated film!
"The Ring" is a merciless thriller, threateningly beautiful to look at and eerie to behold. Director Verbinski and screenwriter Ehren Kruger. Every scene and every shot of "The Ring," the smart American remake of the popular 1998 Japanese horror film "Ringu," contains a nearly suffocating feeling of dread. It weighs down heavily on the characters' lives and the viewer's head, refusing to let up. Directed by Gore Verbinski (2001's "The Mexican") with a sharp eye for visual detail and a keen sense of generating suspense, the film is a creepy and considerably unsettling experience that works its way deeply under your skin. The frightening prologue is a real attention-grabber. During a sleepover, two teenage girls, Katie (Amber Tamblyn) and Becca (Rachael Bella), discuss a legend involving a videotape in which, the moment you finish watching it, you receive a telephone call informing you that you have seven days to live. After Katie informs Becca that she watched it exactly a week ago, things grow quite dire. Enter single mother and news reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), who is asked by her sister (Lindsay Frost) to investigate the circumstances surrounding daughter Katie's mysterious sudden death. Rachel's research ultimately leads her to the infamous tape in question. When she watches it and, to her horror, receives the cryptic phone call, the countdown to her impending death begins. Unless Rachel can find out where the tape originated and put a stop to the curse, she faces the same fate as her unfortunate niece. The Ring" is a superbly crafted horror film that, rare to form, does not lessen the impact or dumb down its foreign counterpart. Not overly violent and with almost no gore, the unshakable effectiveness it mutters up comes from what is hinted at, but not seen. This tactic works magnificently, since the characters themselves are faced with something that they do not understand. The opening scene, for example, has a setup similar to 1996's "Scream," but instead of ending in a bloodbath, opts for nothing more than a horrific sense of not knowing what to expect. Another sequence involving a crazed horse that gets loose on a barge headed for an island is spectacularly tense and imaginative. WARNING: This is for smart people only, not those who liked films like Scream.
Well Done, Even If Not Very Original
Gore Verbinski ("The Mexican") returns to the director's chair at the helm of 2002's best addition to the Halloween-time horror film rush, "The Ring," a remake of the Japanese film "Ringo." Naomi Watts ("Mulholland Drive") leads a decent cast that includes mostly relative unknowns, except for Brian Cox in what amounts to an extended cameo. The MacGuffin is almost laughable, but Verbinski manages to make it work, and work well. A moody, effective, if uninspired film, "The Ring" has chills where it counts, but manages to avoid entering the canon of must-see horror.
The movie opens with a typical urban-legend-style storytelling sequence where two young girls discuss a mysterious videotape that supposedly kills whomever watches it seven days later. Investigative reporter Rachel Keller (Watts) is then drawn to investigate the tape, and after watching it in a remote cabin outside of Seattle, she receives a chilling phone call from a young girl that informs her that she will indeed die in seven days. At first she doesn't believe it, but a string of other deaths and ghostly encounters lead her to investigate further, especially as her friends and loved ones watch the video and inadvertently lead themselves on the same long (short?) walk.
The film's strongest point byfar is the mood it creates. Slightly skewed camera angles and tight editing add to a feeling of general dread and impending doom, and the minimal lighting and some creepy effects (I'll never look at a TV quite the same way again) keep the steam running. It's a shame that the film didn't capitalize more on the claustrophobic feelings towards the end of the film, because they built it very well in the second part but couldn't maintain the atmosphere until the end.
Where "The Ring" fails is in its failure to break out of too many genre clichés. "Session 9" managed to create a wholly original horror film not two years ago, and "The Ring" had the potential to do so, but instead seemed to mingle together several sources for inspiration. Granted, films like "The Changeling" and "The Omen" aren't bad movies to rip off, but for those familiar with the genre, you can't help but sit there and think "I've seen this before," which kind of ruins the mood.
"The Ring" is worth seeing on the big screen, or a rental when it comes to DVD, but I doubt I'd watch it more than a couple of times.
scariest movie ever
The Ring is about a freaky little girl that kills you seven days after you watch her messed up video.This movie is so screwed up that it'll make you go under your covers with a flashlight and make you want your mommy.P.S. you'll have to find the ending out yourself.
Related DVD's The Ring - Collector's Edition (Widescreen Edition)
A grainy, enigmatic videotape has the power to kill people seven days after they watch it. This brilliant premise fueled the 2002 Hollywood hit The Ring, but before that it conquered Japan in Ringu, Hideo Nakata's quietly unsettling study in terror. Fans of the U.S. version will find a less elaborate storyline and more primal fear in the original; the basic plot, however, still has a worried reporter (Nanako Matsushima) tracking down the meaning of the video--and, having watched it herself, she has only a week to work. The film's calm, economical style actually adds to the creeping sense of dread throughout, and the hair-curling set-pieces stand out in contrast. Like an old photograph of something evil, Ringu has the strange-but-familiar power to unnerve. Guaranteed,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Hideo Nakata DVD Release Date: Released the 04 March 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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