Cheap scare tactics

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2003)

Having been told by everyone I know that The Ring is the SCARIEST MOVIE EVER and MADE ME LOSE SLEEP FOR WEEKS, my expectations were fairly high. I honestly don't understand why this film has everyone pulling the covers over their heads. It's average, nothing more, and it's cheap. Most of its supposed horror is of the "jarring musical chord as a door is opened to reveal a mutilated corpse" variety. It wasn't effective in Friday the 13th Pt. VII, and it's not particularly effective here. Once in a while something will disturb you or make you jump - the girl lurching out of the television, or the disgusting makeup job on the victims of the killer videotape - but on the whole The Ring is inconsistent and annoying. The two main characters were so irritating, inept and aggressively stupid I not only didn't care what happened to them, I wanted them to die BEFORE their seven-day countdown reached zero. There's simply no reason we should care what happens to them. The son is nothing but another incarnation of the "preternaturally intelligent or intuitive child" archetype we see in too many movies these days. His connection with Samara is never explained. The ending is smug and self-satisfied and makes no sense; I could almost see Gore Verbinski (who also directed Mouse Hunt) standing up in his chair, yelling "1 4M CL3V4R!!!1"
If you want to watch a movie that's as creepy and atmospheric as The Ring tried to be, watch the vastly underrated The Mothman Prophecies.
6/10