Film review: The Ring The Ring
Reviewed by JTazz for CVN
jdb_educator's CVN Rating = A I have't seen it, but now am interested...
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The Ring Rated : PG-13 Stars : Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Cox Writer : Ehren Kruger, based on the novel by Koji Suzuki and on the motion picture by The Ring/Spiral Production Group Director : Gore Verbinski Distributor : DreamWorks Pictures
Heard the one about the videotape that kills you if you watch it? Whether or not THE RING has its basis in actual urban folklore. In addition to Koji Suzuki’s novel and a Japanese-language film, plus sequels, this film certainly has the feel of one of those stories you heard at school, that always happened to a friend of a friend’s cousin. This touch of pop veracity could augur almost anything, but in fact director Gore Verbinski and screenwriter Ehren Kruger have come up with a horror movie that is not only genuinely creepy but notably well structured, moving fluidly between revelation and flat-out dread. The prologue introduces us to the notion of a mysterious videotape that somehow kills anyone who watches it exactly seven days after viewing. We get a demonstration of the phenomenon that faithfully hits every pop horror opening beat (girls giggling over minor transgressions, fake out scares followed by real ones) yet manages to set a perfectly ominous mood, climaxing with a jump. We are then introduced to the victim’s aunt, Seattle-Intelligencer reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), who is worried about the reaction of her young son Aidan (David Dorfman) to his cousin’s death. Aidan has a slightly morbid imagination that turns out to have been active even before the tragedy. When the dead girl’s grieving mother asks Rachel to look into what might have happened, Rachel uses her journalistic sleuthing skills and soon hears of the tape. Her curiosity is piqued when she learns that three friends who watched the tape with her niece also died in separate incidents at exactly the same time. Rachel tracks down the tape, watches it… and finds herself facing a seven-day deadline, with some mighty nasty goings-on in the meantime. The title has a double meaning, referring both to a visual clue in the tape as to what started the chain of terror, and the ring of a telephone as an enigmatic voice informs new about-to-be-victims that they have seven days left. Blessedly, while the characters don’t demonstrate BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER -style offhandedness about the supernatural, neither do they waste much of their (and our) time on disbelief. The proof Rachel and her ex-boyfriend Noah (Martin Henderson) get about the danger they’re in is pretty unnerving. Rachel and Noah act intelligently under the circumstances, which makes their plight all the more suspenseful – the story is propelled by rightly earned fear, rather than (as is often the case) character stupidity. Verbinski’s imagery owes a good deal to David Lynch, while finding its own baleful way. A sequence involving a runaway horse (which some viewers may find especially hard to watch, ASPCA disclaimer of the animal performer’s safety notwithstanding) and a couple of incidents of TV sets bringing much more than picture and sound to the proceedings are little dark classics. Best of all, though, Kruger’s script never cheats. The more we hear of the back story, the more it sounds like something that could produce the results Rachel and Co. are experiencing, and the ending, set up subtly but fairly well in advance, is wickedly perfect. Watts and Henderson are low-key and effective, while Dorfman is one spooky child actor. Brian Cox contributes strongly in a supporting role as a man who doesn’t want to talk about what’s on the tape. THE RING is entertaining and frightening, a case of a formula being tweaked to work just as intended. It’s one of the best pop horror films to come along in quite awhile.