It is hard to make a movie that nails two genres so well. Horror and mystery are no exception to this rule. So many have tried to blend together horrific images along with a beautifully crafted head-scratcher and have come out with their face in the dirt. The Grudge and several other ripoff movies just like The Ring came out around this time, but none of them were able to capture the magic. Several of them were slop that didn't deserve to be made. This movie had some advertising, but it wasn't something that really stormed the box office until people started having some word of mouth. This movie became a cult classic all its own and somehow, they were never able to recapture the lightning in the proverbial bottle.
It is a curious case of the remake being better than the original. The Ring just so happened to capture the atmosphere of the genre without straying too far from the story of Ringu. The characters and the plot are very captivating, but it also has the most unsettling vibe throughout the entire movie. It's always like something is wrong but you just can't put your finger on it. The clock is always ticking and even when the little girl with the hair is not seen, she is felt. The more the mystery unravels, the more interesting the story becomes. It's just plain fun to watch.
From the very start, the atmosphere becomes tense. It is not even scary, aside from the first girl telling her friend that she watched a video tape. It was a video tape that was infamous for killing the one who watched it in seven days. At first, it's just a joke and they didn't believe it. Then the phone rings and things start to get a little serious when it starts to become a little too real. The scare that comes is so sudden and is a "blink and you miss it" sort of affair. It is jarring but a perfect prologue to the movie.
The girl's death becomes the leaping point for the plot as a woman named Rachel Keller, played by Naomi Watts, starts to investigate everything having to do with it. At her wake, we learn a little more about the tape she watched. We mainly learn where she watched the tape and that's where the movie really takes a dark turn. Our main lady watches the VHS tape for herself and this is a main part where the remake truly overshadows the original. The tape is a nightmare realm of surrealistic bliss. The special effects seem flawlessly standard definition and even gives clues as to what happened to make it.
The dead horses on the beach, the combing of hair, the ladder and the well, each of these clues are seen throughout the film. The story behind the video is absolutely heartbreaking. The closer she gets to the truth, the more disturbing the subject material becomes. We learn this story through newspapers, a disgruntled father and interviews with the girl who never sleeps. The way we find out she never sleeps is just blood curdling. In a surveillance tape, all through the night, one fastforward button shows her sitting around and swaying for hours. Samara Morgan, played by Daveigh Chase, is like a blank slate... soulless and heartless.
Once we get to the final act of the film, we're always worried about our main lady. Not only has she watched the tape, but so has her ex-boyfriend, Noah, played by Martin Henderson and her son, Aidan, played by David Dorfman. The stakes become higher as the movie goes on and the time clock to her seven days grows shorter and shorter. As she uncovers clues about the murders and the video tape, we think she has done what she needs to to break the curse. Well, if you know what the ending of this film is like, you know it's far more complicated than that.
This movie is not perfect, obviously. Some elements just flatout do not make sense. People say weird things to make the movie seem more and more cursed, but out of context, it's just awkward dialogue. The plot with the son gets a little annoying, though it does have a very good payoff. It's just a shame that Dorfman didn't really have any real emotions. His character is a strangely mature child who can tie his own tie and even babysit his babysitter. The strangest part is Samara's father, played by the great Brian Cox, just outright killing himself for no discernable reason. Like, if he was just going to kill himself, why did he bother living all the way up to the point where Rachel comes to visit him?
As a horror suspense goes, this is one of the best. It is dark and unnerving without being outright depressing or overly stimulating to the brain. It makes you think and even gives you that beautiful horror vibe we all crave when getting into the psychological stuff. Naomi Watts is a ridiculously talented actress and she was absolutely perfect for the role. Some of the clues never get answered, but none of those are especially important. The nose bleed is weird, but why was it a thing? Either way, the mysterious nature surrounding Samara and the video tape is captivating and will have you begging for more. Then you find out that "more" means The Ring Two and all the sudden, oh we have other things to do. We need to go rewatch another movie and get as far away from reviewing that---no no! STOP! I'm not reviewing that stupid----
