I Tried So Hard But I Just Didn't Get It!

Rating: 4/10 (9 March 2005)

Geez I wanted to like this movie...I rented it so my wife and I could get a good scare in bed... We began to watch and got through roughly half of it before one of our kids woke up and we had to hit the STOP button. Up to this point, the movie seemed to click along...Production was slick, acting/direction were well done, and the story seemed to be going somewhere...we went to bed without finishing... The next evening, my wife and I licked our chops in anticipation of the last 1/2...Our Heroine made it to the source of the terror and then...EVERYTHING started to fall apart! By the time the movie ended, my wife and I were clueless and angry! Someone drop me an email and explain what happened...I can't find a reason other than the Hollywood clichÃ© that the Horror Film has to grab you and shake you at the end and leave you with a question...The problem here was - We had too many darn questions!!!
The Ring involves a supernatural videotape that will kill anyone who watches it in 7 days...The video is strange...paranormal; time code on it doesn't track and attempts to decipher it by our heroine leave more questions than answers...After you watch the tape, you get a creepy phone call telling you "SEVEN DAYS"...
Our heroine Watts watches the tape after a relative's daughter dies after also seeing it...Watts' clock starts ticking. Since she's a darn good investigative reporter, she uses her time left to research the video's origins to try to find an escape... It's a neat premise but the story ultimately goes in the wrong direction, trying find pragmatic answers to the how and why. In doing this, too much that is abnormal (and there's a lot of it) is left hanging...and of course, we get the contrived "ending within an ending" that's been done a million times. We were hoping for so much more! Oh well...