The Ring (2002)Urban legends can leave you with an unsettled chill, because as implausible as they may be, somewhere deep inside, we can imagine the possibility of such a creepy tale coming to fruition. The Ring (2002) takes one such idea--that out there is a video tape which, when you watch it, causes you to die seven days later--and runs with it, bedecked in skin-crawling shivers and a countdown to death. Journalist Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is solicited by her sister to attempt to discover the reason why her daughter Katie (Amber Tamblyn) died suddenly and in such a horrific fashion. But Rachel's journalistic skills unfortunately end up landing her out of her depth, as the story draw her into its murky vortex.
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Adapted from a Japanese horror movie--Ringu--The Ring retains some key tropes of Japanese horror, notably the manifestation of an onryō, a type of wrathful spirit depicted in Japanese mythology, characterized by a lifeless pallor and wild, long black hair obscuring the face. The onryō seeks revenge for its wrongful death, and actively pursues ways to influence or harm the living, which is in keeping with the same force of evil that lurks within the cursed video cassette. As Rachel's video-savvy ally Noah (Martin Henderson) observes, the VHS tape is very "student film", with bizarre and unsettling imagery that does not seem to signify anything at first. However, as Rachel and Noah seek to unlock its secrets--also motivated by their own sense of impending doom--they begin to discover that the images contained within the tape are clues, leading them to the answers to the mystery, leading them to Moesko Island and the homestead of the Morgans. Rachel's encounters with Richard Morgan (Brian Cox) are tense, not only by his gruff and imposing demeanor, but because Rachel has expectations about Richard's behavior toward his daughter Samara (Daveigh Chase), suspecting that he was at least a bad parent, and potentially abusive. Rachel's expectations of her world color her own understanding of events. She is rational and an intelligent problem solver, but she does see things from the perspective of an adult, one without any real understanding of the forces at work around her, which ultimately plays right into evil's hand. Rachel's son, Aidan (David Dorfman), is alarmingly smart, if a bit dour and distant--he calls his mom by her first name--but he is possessed of a unique gift, a kind of preternatural sensory ability, which if he is to be believed, allows him to communicate with the dead, and see what hasn't happened yet. Rachel doesn't really recognize his abilities to their fullest, and she seems apprehensive to believe the supernatural until it's staring her in the face. It is fair to say that by the time Rachel experiences her last revelation about the true nature of the evil at the source of the curse, she has misunderstood its intentions, because she believed that her understanding of the curse was the right one, and could not understand what Aidan had tried to convey to her. The lurking evil also exploits the medium of television and VHS to infect the world with her cancerous message. Just as Richard accuses Rachel of exploiting his tragedy, claiming that she "takes one person's tragedy and spreads it for the whole world like a sickness," so too does Rachel get consigned to do the same thing by the evil wishing to use Rachel to spread her message, a task she is well-suited for in her profession. And the evil at work understands film perhaps too well, exploiting Rachel's empathy to give her what she wants, just as a film and its protagonist can evoke empathy from us to pull our emotions in one direction.
Made in 2002, The Ring was produced at the tail end of the VHS era; today, as much of the technology explored in the film appears antiquated, it is better to look upon the film as a fixed point in time, when static on the TV was a thing, like personal cameras, and of course, video cassette tapes. The Ring exploits conventions of the VHS medium, playfully manipulating tracking lines to reveal a picture lurking behind the image, grainy resolution giving a grim, unfriendly pallor to moments in time. In any age where we become increasingly comfortable with technology and its role in our lives, films like The Ring expose a technophobic fear of that technology--those modern conveniences--taking form and threatening us makes for terrifying subject matter. Another element of the film which emerges as a threat is water; while primarily set in the northwest of Washington, where rainy days are far from rare, the constant presence of overcast and rainy weather foreshadows the grim fate of the victims of the curse, as well as other moments of horror involving bodies of water, its presence a looming threat at every turn. There is a lot of speculation as to the origin of Samara, whether she was adopted--since he and his wife Anna (Shannon Cochran) could not have children, it would seem--though she certainly remained unpopular on Moesko Island, with even the local doctor (Jane Alexander) expressing her gratitude that Samara was locked up in a mental hospital and removed from the island. Samara's own unique talents seem to mirror Aidan's, which evokes sympathy from Rachel. Where Rachel began her journey to discover where the curse originated from, she also finds herself driven to learn just what happened to Samara...and the two mysteries are more intertwined than she would have suspected.
Recommended for: Fans of horror films with high doses of creepy and unsettling tone and the occasional bizarre manifestation of the strange horror of malicious ghosts. A great idea of taking the "pulling back the curtain on an urban legend" kind of story, only to find something even more shocking behind it.
Made in 2002, The Ring was produced at the tail end of the VHS era; today, as much of the technology explored in the film appears antiquated, it is better to look upon the film as a fixed point in time, when static on the TV was a thing, like personal cameras, and of course, video cassette tapes. The Ring exploits conventions of the VHS medium, playfully manipulating tracking lines to reveal a picture lurking behind the image, grainy resolution giving a grim, unfriendly pallor to moments in time. In any age where we become increasingly comfortable with technology and its role in our lives, films like The Ring expose a technophobic fear of that technology--those modern conveniences--taking form and threatening us makes for terrifying subject matter. Another element of the film which emerges as a threat is water; while primarily set in the northwest of Washington, where rainy days are far from rare, the constant presence of overcast and rainy weather foreshadows the grim fate of the victims of the curse, as well as other moments of horror involving bodies of water, its presence a looming threat at every turn. There is a lot of speculation as to the origin of Samara, whether she was adopted--since he and his wife Anna (Shannon Cochran) could not have children, it would seem--though she certainly remained unpopular on Moesko Island, with even the local doctor (Jane Alexander) expressing her gratitude that Samara was locked up in a mental hospital and removed from the island. Samara's own unique talents seem to mirror Aidan's, which evokes sympathy from Rachel. Where Rachel began her journey to discover where the curse originated from, she also finds herself driven to learn just what happened to Samara...and the two mysteries are more intertwined than she would have suspected.
Recommended for: Fans of horror films with high doses of creepy and unsettling tone and the occasional bizarre manifestation of the strange horror of malicious ghosts. A great idea of taking the "pulling back the curtain on an urban legend" kind of story, only to find something even more shocking behind it.