ot to be confused with the abysmal Feardotcom—which is about a Web site
that kills you in 48 hours—The Ring features a videotape that kills you in seven days. At the outset, the tape is merely the subject of an urban legend, passed from one teenage girl to another. But when one of the girls, Katie (Amber Tamblyn), suffers a horrific death exactly seven days to the hour after watching the tape, it appears the story is more fact than fiction.
At Katie's funeral, investigative reporter Rachel Keller (Watts) starts asking questions about the unexplained circumstances surrounding the death of her niece. She promises Katie's mother that she will uncover the truth behind it. Rachel's first set of clues are the simultaneous deaths of three other teens, all of whom shared a cabin with Katie a week before at a resort called Shelter Mountain.
At the resort, Rachel rents the cabin where Katie and her friends stayed and plays the videotape. Soon after, she starts exhibiting the same symptoms from which Katie suffered before she died. Whenever her picture is taken, her image is distorted. She unconsciously scratches out faces in photographs. She begins having hallucinations related to the images on the tape.
Shaken, but still unconvinced of a supernatural cause, Rachel takes the tape to an ex-boyfriend, Noah (Henderson), an expert in video production. He watches the tape, too, and starts exhibiting the symptoms the following day. Rachel's drive to find out who or what is behind the tape becomes even more urgent when she discovers that her son has watched the tape in her absence.
Determined to save her son's life, Rachel attempts to make sense of the footage on the tape, which seems to lead to a specific explanation. Even if she does uncover the truth in time, will it be enough to save her and those she cares about?
A degraded copy less scary than the original
With The Ring, director Gore Verbinski faced the daunting task of remaking a Japanese film that was not only wildly popular—it spawned two sequels, a television series and even comic books—but also acclaimed as one of the scariest films ever made. As if that weren't difficult enough, the original 1998 film is filled with idiomatic cultural references that don't necessarily
resonate with audiences on this side of the Pacific.
The concept is easy enough to grasp, and fortunately the film does expand beyond the initial hook to become something more substantial (as opposed to Feardotcom, which failed in that respect). But this version is unlikely to click with audiences here the way that Ringu did in Japan.
For one thing, the imagery on the videotape (a ladder falling, an empty chair, an extreme close-up of a horse's eye) is not as creepy and unsettling as it should be. As one character describes it, the tape looks like a student film. Or possibly a music video. Either way, it doesn't inspire much terror. Also, the truth about the source of the videotape is overly complicated, and the backstory is never fully explained. Audiences, as they exit the theater, are more likely to be scratching their heads than looking over their shoulders.
This is not to say that The Ring doesn't have a significant chill factor. There are some disturbing and even frightening scenes near the end. Verbinski has other tricks up his sleeve as well, including a twist ending and a deceptively clichéd opening sequence that is a clever homage to the kind of horror films lampooned in the Scream series. Despite a slow mid-section, there's enough interest here to keep audiences invested in the final outcome. However, those expecting this film to translate into the kind of success the original had overseas will be sorely disappointed.
