I have watched many a horror movie in my time, and its not often that I find one which can so much as race my heartbeat during one scene. I've somewhat graduated from the school of Horror Movies into the school of Suspense Thrillers. Horror movies no longer scare me, well most of them anyway.
Well, The Ring can hardly be called *horror* by my standards. Perhaps it did scare a few people, and it caused such a stir when it was shown in cinemas in South-east Asia that everybody went to watch it. If you didn't you're a geek. That furore spread to the West precisely because everybody watched it in Asia and probably told all their Western friends they should watch it too.
The Ring's plot is built around an everyday household electrical appliance - the television set (and the soon to be obsolete Videocassette). Sadako, the female supernatural power or whatever *it* really is, is on a killing spree. Having been shunned and hated by all around her, she had a nasty vengeful streak and coupled
with her extraordinary psychic powers, could kill anybody anytime if she so wished. This character of hers and her vengeful deeds indirectly caused her psychic mother to commit suicide. Soon after, her supposedly biological father Dr. Ikuma kills her by pushing her into the well at her family's residence. But she's not really dead. Her spirit lives on.
30 years later in present day Japan, some people are killed every week, seemingly by some evil *thing* which comes after them after they watch this video which is being passed all over the place like a chain letter. It works like this - one person watches it (apparently all of them watch it out of curiosity, even though they each probably know about 1 friend who died after watching it) and then he/she has to make a duplicate of the video and pass it to a friend or someone who must watch the video within one week, otherwise at the end of the week, he/she will be killed by this evil *thing* (the evil spirit of Sadako).
There's not much gory detail in this movie... a few images of your *typical* ghostly figure - clad completely in white flowing garments with long shaggy (and presumably) dark hair and with pale white skin. Even the way in which Sadako's victims die isn't frightening at all. Basically they start screaming with their mouths wide open and their faces just freeze *solid* like that, in that screaming terrified look. And that's it, they're dead.
As a result, I find the scarier parts are the ones which aren't images of people dying. Where you see a ghostly apparition here or there, behind you or in the distance... well that's the scariest thing you can possibly get in this movie. Even the close-ups of Sadako's face aren't scary - to me it just looks like she put on too much white makeup (the sort they use on circus clowns) and the makeup cakes up too much on her face, cracking everytime she smiles or makes a facial expression. As for the close-up of her eyes, well that can be a little scary but you won't even get to see much of that in this movie anyway.
If you're looking for lots of gore, this movie won't do it for you. Although loads of people die in this movie, its not scary. Perhaps what's really scary is the main theme of the movie - the well. Its a very clever sort of movie. It addresses all our innate fears of wells whether we acknowledge it or not. Let's face it - which one of you wasn't scared of falling into a well when you're standing right next to it? And if somebody did push you into a well with malicious intention, and if nobody hears your cries, well... you're just about done in, aren't you? And so, with just that one grainy image of the well on the television - the well in which a girl was killed - inspires fear. Probably after you've watched this movie, that image of the well will stick in your head for years to come. Not so much as to "haunt" you, per se... but if one day you are alone at home and that image starts playing on your TV screen when you aren't watching this movie, you'd probably feel a tad wary. Seconds later, when the phone rings... don't pick it up!!
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Production Year: 2000 - Horror - Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, James Van Der Beek, Keenen Ivory Wayans
Jan 13th, 2004
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