What a horror flick should be like

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2003)

As a great fan of horror movies, I feel that the future looks promising for this genre. During the last two years, there are two movies in particular that have made an impression on me, "The Others" and "The Ring". What they have in common is the lack of excessive gore, something that otherwise seem to be the foundation of American horror. Instead, they are creepy and scary, ie they will terrify you, but they won't make you sick.
The storyline of "The Ring" in short: A young reporter investigates the events surrounding a strange videotape, where a few people have died a week after watching this tape. During her investigations, she watches the videotape, and immediately after receives a phonecall by someone, telling her that she have seven days left to live. This quickens up the pace a bit, and this reporter eventually uncovers what she believes to be the truth of this cursed tape - Case closed? No, there is a twist, you see... And that's about all I'm going to tell you, watch the movie if you like to know more. ;-)
In difference to some of the other reviewers that consider this to be a crappy movie, my verdict is that it is one of the greatest horror movies I've seen in recent years. A simple reason to disagree with them is this - Each and everyone with an internet connection and an e-mail address can write a review here on IMDB, regardless of experience, knowledge and judgement, and I know that writing reviews is NOT easy, if you like to communicate anything more than your own opinions and personal interpretations. Some reviewers claim that every movie they've seen is either the lowest piece of crap they ever seen, or the greatest movie to ever hit the market, with a total disregard for the fact that there is quite a span between "utter rubbish" and "finest piece of work ever done". It's hard to take that kind of shallowness seriously.
Thus, I rate "The Ring" as 8½ out of 10 - It's a great horror flick, but I don't think it's the best I have ever seen.
Others have complained about "The Ring" as being too much of a 6th Sense-ripoff, and claims that anyone who compares this movie to "The 6th Sense" is doing the latter movie a great injustice. Well, on the contrary, in my opinion - "The 6th Sense", although a good horror flick is far from as good as "The Ring", as it relies more on blood and gore (all the ghosts you see are either decaying, covered in blood and gore or puking) than horror, in order to scare you. Unfortunately, blood and gore equals to horror to a good part of the American crowd, but I believe Europeans have a little more taste than that. Covering everything with ketchup is a very cheap trick, and it don't work on me. Otherwise, "Black Hawk Down" would be the pinnacle of the horror genre. ;-)
The bottom line is this: If you like to watch a great horror flick with a creepy mood, some unexpected twists and a good deal of mystery, this is the movie for you. If blood, gore and excessive use of sound effects is what you like, I'd recommend you to watch "Pet Sematary", "Night Flier", "Terror on Elm Street" or some other splatter movie. ;-)
"The Ring" is a horror movie, no more, no less.