FEST2003

The Ring
Gore Verbinski, director  

 Review by Rada Djurica   

Spoiler Warning: The following review reveals important plot details.

At first, it looks like another urban legend. A videotape with someone's nightmare recorded, leading to a phone call foretelling the viewer's death. This sort of premise is the way to commercial success for every horror movie ever made. Even if seen before, it works every time. Because this is what horror is all about. You know that its a cliché, but you also know that you are going to get entertained. A horror film is not the kind of film that demands originality as much as it demands clichés and good looking actors, of course.

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 hot. Naturally, a newspaper journalist, Rachel, is sceptical, even after five teenagers die mysteriously. Curiosity kills the cat.

Right after you view a certain videotape, a caller from what sounds like the Great Beyond tells you that you have seven days to live. The caller on the phone is a female with a very precise stop watch. Seven days to the second after you see the tape, you will die, and it won't be pretty.

Rachel has to watch the killer tape as soon as she gets her hands on it. She now has seven days to investigate the images before she dies. She starts with the image of a ring, finding out that it gets very strange after that, with the image of an innocent child and a beautiful, mysterious woman... Being unable to figure it out, she takes the tape to Noah (Martin Henderson), her video friend. She hopes that he can find hidden messages with clues on it. In her case, by solving the mystery she is saving herself from death, finding out a morbid story about a psychotic mother who has murdered her own daughter by throwing her in a well. Before that, she abused her, blaming her for her bad relationship with her husband. The child survived seven days in the well, before dying in the worst possible psychological torture. So, who is the killer, then? Of course, the dead child's spirit, seeking to revenge the pain and suffering she felt during her life. A real frightening prologue and a real attention-grabber.

"The Ring" is classic horror, with all the classic horror elements, but still, with all the monstrosity, it sticks in your memory for some time. It is a superbly crafted horror film, although it relies more on an intriguing mystery and a detective story than on the element of the surprise, no matter what the film's marketing might lead you to believe. The opening scene, for example, has a set-up similar to 1996's "Scream," but instead of ending in a bloodbath, results in nothing more than a horrific sense of not knowing what to expect. Another sequence involving a crazed horse that gets loose is not spectacularly tense and imaginative. The ingredients of the mystery are there: dead horses, a lighthouse and even a fly.

Naomi Watts, in her first leading role in a studio picture, does not disappoint after her breakthrough work in last year's David Lynch masterpiece, "Mulholland Drive." A horror film is always a smart start for a big budget career.

Gore Verbinski is a director who built his career doing commercial television for brand names such as Coca Cola, 7-Up, Canon, Nike, etc. He also directed low budget short films such as "The Ritual." His big directorial debut was "Mouse Hunt," a comedy, and of course "The Mexican." He is definitely a commercial film director, with no reason to be ashamed about a horror film.

Every single scene of "The Ring" is a smart American remake of the popular 1998 Japanese horror film "Ringu." The most effective thing is that the film contains the suffocating feeling of dread, taken from the Japanese version. This film is definitely directed with a sharp eye for visual effects, and a general skill for suspense. The story is upsetting and creepy, and it gets under your skin.

This is, still, another horror film, not better, but certainly not worse from the previous ones.