Force Fed Films: The Ring (2002)

Now that I'm back home, and not complicating things by being on the opposite side of the country, the regular site's schedule should pick back up. Puneet seemed to feel it was very important that I see The Ring, the American remake of the 1998 Japanese original Ringu. I bring this up, because I've already seen Ringu, but I never saw The Ring. I never saw the point in seeing it since I had seen the original. It has been a while though, so I didn't remember the story perfectly well, but I did remember some elements, such as what "the ring" is and who the creepy girl was. Anyways, I had to watch it because it's what Puneet choose, so after the jump you'll find my impressions on the remake of Ringu.


There is a high school rumor going around that there is a cursed videotape, which after you watch it, you have 7 days to live. The movie opens with 2 young girls, and in typical scary movie fashion they scare each other with stories, until the inevitable happens and one of them dies, apparently from something literally scaring her to death. We see her face for a split second, but it's enough to tell it wasn't an ordinary death. The mother of the girl asks her reporter sister to see if she can look into it to see if she can't find a reason why she died. She agrees to investigate, and she finds out that 3 other friends all died at the same time on the same day. She tracks their whereabouts back 1 full week to some cabins. There she finds a freakish tape which contains a lot of unusual, sometimes horrific imagery. Moments later, the phone rings, and the words "seven days" are whispered into her ear. Can she discover the cause and reason for the curse before the week is up and she too dies a horrible death?

The movie is plagued with a blue filter in an attempt to give it atmosphere

First of all, I have no idea why this movie was even made. There is nearly no difference in the story, characters, or anything as far as I can tell, and in fact I don't think it's as scary as the original. My problem here is that I obviously already know the whole mystery behind what's going on, so I had none of that to hang on to. But from what I remember of the ghost and the freaky events of the first, they were better preformed and the way the effects were pulled off were creepier. This movie just seems too "clean", and the way they tried to give it atmosphere is to just put a blue filter on absolutely everything. Then again, I don't know that I won't run into those problems with the first one. But that brings me right back to my original question. If these movies are so similar, then what was even the point of making this one at all. It's not like the original isn't available with English subtitles. If nothing unique or original can be brought to a remake other than changing the language, I just don't see the point or the value in it.

The imagery of the ring is really mysterious and creepy... unless you know what it is

The acting and script were average at best. Luckily the best performance is given by the character we spend the most time with, Naomi Watts as Rachel. Unluckily, we're stuck with all the rest of the nearly budget actors, like Martin Henderson as Rachel's ex. Particularly bad is Rachel's annoying too-mature-for-his-age son, played by a young David Dorfman. Is the kid supposed to be creepy, or is there supposed to just be a role reversal going on in that the kid seems more put together than his messed up mom? But then if I'm to believe she's so messed up, then how am I supposed to believe she's this amazing star reporter who can crack such a loopy impossible case like the one in The Ring in only a few days. I know what they're supposed to be going for, that she's so focused on work she's become a bad parent, but it just didn't play that way for me, and it was all because of the kid and his actions like getting her clothes ready for her.

Possibly most of the problems of the movie, even the sub-par performances, can be attributed to the script. None of the characters ever say anything substantial or even interesting. Sure it does its job and gets our protagonist from point A to point B, and in the end we have a movie that's understandable, but so is a paint-by-numbers picture. This again comes from the fact that nothing new or interesting, nothing of any artistic merit or value was put into this remake, and it's more like a lame photocopy of Ringu.

I really, truly feel like I've wasted my time tonight. I'm sure to those who have never see it or the original will find it creepy, because they'll have no idea what the ending is. But that wasn't the case with me. I've seen the superior original, and almost nothing was a mystery. None of it was scary or shocking or creepy or any other adjective you might describe a good ghost story with. I feel like, even if I watch a movie I don't like, at least I've seen something new. But I didn't even get that here.

If you've seen the original, skip this completely. On the other hand, if you've never seen Ringu, then go watch Ringu. If you're so lazy that you utterly straight out refuse to read subtitles, then I suppose you could make do with this one, even if it's kind of a disrespect to the makers of Ringu to simply ignore their creative and original idea just because you don't want to read.