Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:55 - Released 10/18/02
THE RING
Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:55 - Released 10/18/02
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, horror movies are like a box of chocolates:
everyone has his own favorite kind. I'm much more a fan of chocolates
than horror movies, but of this film genre, I think my favorite
kind is The Ring. While some folks like them full of screams,
jumps, and dripping knives, this movie captures the essence of
horror in my idea of it. It is subtle, quiet, and deeply enigmatic,
like a disturbing dream. To me, this is much more effective than
special effects that beat you over the head. The acting is sufficient,
not spectacular, but that is not really required if you have a
director who can evoke the proper imagery. Gore Verbinski, the
director behind such an eclectic list of films as the farcical
1997 children's comedy Mouse Hunt
and last year's comedy-drama The Mexican,
fits that description. Verbinski takes a mediocre concept (from
the novel by Kôji Suzuki, adapted by screenwriter Ehren
Kruger, using some elements from Hiroshi Takahashi's screenplay
for the 1998 Japanese version called Ringu), and a fair
but relatively unknown cast (Naomi Watts, Mulholland
Drive, and Martin Henderson, Windtalkers),
and uses his talent for creepy visual artistry to make it an effective
horror film.
The only unfortunate thing about this movie is its clear similarity,
in plot, to the much inferior August release Fear
Dot Com. In that film, it was a website that killed its
viewers, and it did so within 48 hours. This time it's a video,
and it gives them a full week. But both movies have a scary little
girl, both have the victims seeing hallucinations and bleeding
from the nose, and both have a man and a woman trying to figure
it all out before they both become the next members of the six-foot-under
club. The close conjunction of the two films' release dates eliminates
any speculation that one is an imitation of the other, but it
doesn't help to look like a copycat. Unfortunately for Verbinski
and company, this is the result.
The story starts when a Seattle teen (Amber Tamblyn) and her
three friends all die horrible deaths exactly at the same time,
exactly 7 days after watching a weird videotape. The girl's aunt,
Rachel Keller (Watts), a reporter for a local newspaper, investigates
the case and watches the tape, a short video full of unexplained
images like dead horses, a burning tree, and a comely woman (Shannon
Cochran) who looks in a mirror and is later seen leaping off a
cliff. Immediately after the film ends, Rachel receives a phone
call with an ominous voice saying, "You have seven days."
She calls her ex-lover, a telecommunications expert named Noah
(Henderson), and reluctantly shows it to him. Then the phone rings
again.
As the days count down from the moment of Rachel's viewing,
she and Noah begin a frantic investigation of what the images
could mean and who it is making the phone calls. During this period,
they meet Richard Morgan (Brian Cox), the widower of the woman
in the video, who harbors a dark secret. But the tension really
gets high when Rachel's little boy (David Dorfman) watches the
tape and gets his call.
The Ring (whose title, in the midst of Lord Of The Rings -mania, also looks unfortunately derivative) certainly contains many stock elements of the genre, like creepy images seen in mirrors, sleep-deprived zombie types that refuse to die, and red herrings, but somehow, director Verbinski is able to rise above the stereotypical material and craft a truly disturbing film, helped in no small part by the haunting, beautiful musical score by Hans Zimmer. It's not quite up to the quality of the star-studded Hannibal Lecter film Red Dragon, but it generally succeeds more than it fails. ****
