The Ring

Review - Gore Verbinski (The Mexican) directs this American remake of a famous Japanese horror novel Ringu (Koji Suzuki).  Which spawned three films, a TV series, and a comic book.  Borrowing heavily from other horror fare, Seven, The Sixth Sense, & Stir Of Echoes, Verbinski manages to touch allot of bases without really creating anything uniquely his own.  It's more unfortunate in an esthetic sense but The Ring does offer some pretty good scares.

Videotape, displaying surreal images is viewed.  When it's completed the phone rings.  A voice on the line says, "7 days.".  And the downward spiral begins.  Although the full 7day experience is limited to our heroine, Naomi Watts (Mullholland Drive), a male friend, Martin Henderson, and, to a lesser extent, her son David Dorfman; we do get a thoroughly frightening opening sequence.  Fear is what its all about.

Tension, is mainly provided by the setting of the film.  Set in Seattle and it's surrounding islands The Ring manages to draw the area's grey sense of claustrophobia and a rustic sense of age into a nice little web of, "I'm not going in there!".  Sometimes the way things look, a cabin, a lighthouse, or videotape, is enough, but once you've crossed the line, there has to be 'a hammer' and the stars you see should be bright and clear.

That said, plot holes are evident in The Ring, no surprise there, and we filled in a few during a discussion after the film.  The Ring could have been a film in the same league with Seven, The Sixth Sense, and Stir Of Echoes.  If only it hadn't been afraid of itself.

In closing, I want to tell you that we saw The Ring early Saturday evening.  I'm a fan of seeing a film in a packed theater.  I enjoy the audience response and occasional participation.  The Ring provided us with one of my favorite episodes in audience participation.  Just some guy who came alone, and was pretty well scared out of his mind, He let the theater know when it was too much for him to contain.  Normally this sucks but I think he made the whole experience worth my five and a half bucks.  I hope you're as lucky. "Oh shit...Oh Shit........Damn!"

-m-