Movie: The Ring

[Zixar]

A reporter runs across a story about a secret videotape which, if you view it, you will die in seven days. Of course, being the typical reporter, she watches it. Immediately after the final image on the tape, her phone rings, and a mysterious voice says "Seven days..."

She's still not convinced, although her research turns up that every one of the high school kids who watched it did die, precisely seven days later, to the hour. Gradually, she becomes more and more fearful as the time winds down, until she walks in too late to keep her young son from watching it. Now she becomes more and more frantic as she tries desperately to unravel the horror before her seven days expire...

This was the flat-out creepiest movie I've seen in quite a while, easily stomping "Blair Witch Project" flat. Director Gore Verbinski doesn't give in to the Hollywood cliche' of cheap scares/"fake-boo" shots, (like the mysterious noise only being a cat in the kitchen) he instead creates dread subliminally, using inappropriate camera shots to keep tensions high. An example: Normally, when you want to have an actress convey great fear, you do a tight close-up on her face, or maybe even just her eyes. However, if you have the same situation, but put the actress off to one side of a medium shot, and show this space behind her that she obviously can't see, then linger on it for a few seconds, the impression is created that something is going to come up behind her and get her. Remember the scene in Aliens when the little girl is standing in the water while Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn try to cut through the floor with a blowtorch? Then, just as they do, the camera jumps back to the same shot of the girl, but now an Alien comes up from the water and grabs her? You get the idea.

Verbinski uses shots like these all through the film, but (cleverly) doesn't pay off on all of them. You keep trying to predict when the stereotypical "boo" shot is going to happen, just like it always does in all the zillions of horror movies you've seen before, but it's not predictable. There's no "Okay, it's too early in the movie for this to be the real villain, so it's a fake...[insert cat jumping off cabinet]See? Told you it wasn't him. Yawn."

Now, there is at least one point in the movie where you'll say "Yawn, Zix was wrong, I saw that coming a mile away..." All I can say is, "you didn't see what you thought you did--keep watching..."

My wife was physically shaking through the ending, and there must have been twenty teenage girls shrieking at the true-boo scenes.

For only a PG-13 movie, it's surprisingly effective. Naturally, then, it's not an American original. It's a remake of the 1998 Japanese film Ringu. Expect to see the Americanized versions of Ringu 2 and the prequel Ringu Zero over the next couple of years. (Although one of the scenes from Ringu 2 was used in this remake of the first in order to explain a little of the backstory...)

If you enjoy a good scare, but not cheap scares, this is one you'll want to see. If you're the type who has nightmares easily, avoid this one at all costs. I think it's an absolute must-see for film students.

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