Fear is a personal thing.

Rating: 9/10 (25 August 2003)

Take into your viewing of this film no presuppositions; fear is a personal thing, and when it aims to seep into the mind as deeply as this, some people will pass it by without a sideways glance, and others will just laugh.
Some films scare on the surface - Halloween, Psycho, The Exorcist and TTCSM are superficial, almost enjoyable thrillers, laced with gore, comedy and shocks. That is the modern idea of horror. It is unlikely that a person of sound mind will take the scenes to bed with them, less still have any nightmares.
The Ring has some of these, but the real genius are those moments that cause nothing more than aghast silence, and a sense of bewilderment. Don't Look Now has such moments; Eraserhead goes, perhaps, a little too far, but still hangs around like a bad taste in the mouth. Some of the imagery in The Ring is too intense, it needs comic relief, but around each corner is another thug of a moment : blood red, hyper-polarised, in your face.
As I have said, real horror is a personal thing, and I won't be losing the baggage that this film has left in my head for some time.