A lame remake of a lame movie.

Rating: Null/10 (2 August 2003)

I seem to be one of the few people in the world that thought the original Japanese version of this movie ('Ringu') was utter crap. There have been some amazing horror and other kinds of disturbing movies coming out of Japan over the last several years (e.g. 'Battle Royale', 'Wild Zero', 'Freezer', 'Gemini', Takashi Miike movies like 'Audition' and 'Ichi The Killer') so to focus on 'Ringu' as an example of cutting edge film making is a joke. (sigh) So hear we have the Hollywood remake... I really didn't expect much of it considering the lameness of the source material, but it's actually a little lamer, with some 'Sixth Sense'-isms thrown in and some silly stuff involving horses, which didn't make any sense. But then not much makes sense in either version anyway. My main problem with both movies is that they just aren't frightening. At all. Not one little bit. My other problem - and I could easily have overlooked it if they WERE frightening - was the sheer stupidity of the plot. The initial premise of a killer video is okay, if not exactly original (David Cronenberg's astonishing 'Videodrome' twenty years ago dealt with something similar, a cable TV broadcast which caused life-altering "hallucinations"), but the movie doesn't even stick with it, it goes into an increasingly ridiculous plot which has so many wholes in it (just who is making those phone calls by the way?) it's impossible to keep interested. And people say Dario Argento movies have stupid plots and cardboard characters! As to ex-Soap actress Naomi Watts, I just can't see what's so good about to her. The guy playing her ex, another 'Home And Away' veteran I think, he's pretty faceless, and Brian Cox, the one good actor in the movie, has little more than a cameo, which gives him little to work with. 'The Ring' is the most overrated horror movie since, well, 'Ringu'. And as far as I'm concerned anyone who thinks 'The Ring' is some kind of horror masterpiece can kiss mine.