Rip offs and Hodgepodge

Rating: 6/10 (28 October 2002)

Greetings again from the darkness. Ahhh, "word of mouth"! The best advertising campaign a movie can have. Just ask "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Positive word of mouth had me anxious to see "The Ring". Not many clever horror/suspense/thrillers come around these days. It appears the moviegoing public is so starved for this genre, that we can turn mish-mash into success at the box office. Don't kid yourself. This is a stupid, poorly made, well conceived milkshake of a movie. It blatantly steals from the best - "Poltergeist", "Psycho", "Rear Window", "Rosemary's Baby", and "The Sixth Sense". Even the lead actors appear to be rip-offs: Naomi Watts (excellent in "Mulholland Drive") mimics Rebecca DeMorney and Theresa Russell, Martin Henderson takes on Viggo Mortenson and Elias Koteas, and little David Dorfman does his best Haley Joel Osment and Adam Hann-Byrd ("Little Man Tate"). actually have talent. Director Gore Verbinski ("The Mexican") seems to be a big fan of horror movies and by golly, was going to get every idea he ever had into this one. And I think he had Brian Cox use one electrical appliance for every one of his ideas. Nice premise with the video tape and 7 days, just poor execution. The film does offer up some wonderful visuals in dream sequences and video. The past is much more interesting than the present for these characters. And I want to nominate Naomi Watts character for the absolute WORST MOTHER OF THE YEAR. So ridiculous.