Goodbye Wes Craven, Hello The Ring.

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2002)

Well, what can I say? The Ring is THE ultimate horror movie. Relying more on building atmosphere and paranoia than blood and gore, much like The 6th Sense did in it's own way (a now inferior film to The Ring IMHO).
There are only two or three 'jump out of your seat' scenes in The Ring, and trust me your head will hit the roof when they come. Instead it floods you with a constant sense of eerieness that lingers long after you've left the theatre. Topped off with one of the most amazing horror scripts ever written, far surpassing the somewhat shallow story-telling of the original Japanese version. The film also owes a lot of it's 'creep factor' to the cinematography. Images (without giving anything away) of the child "villian" will be in your head every time you close your eyes for days after. And the montage of images on the cursed video tape itself is the most mesmerising piece of cinema since THAT psychedelic trip in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Ring shatters every "Hollywood Horror" cliche and I congratulate the film-makers for taking a big risk, both with the production and marketing. I'm not sure how it was promoted in the US, but here in Australia all we got were a few TV ads showing a quick 3 second flash of the images on the cursed tape, and then Rachel (Naomi Watts in her 1st post Mullholand Drv role) saying "Before you die you see the ring" nothing but a black poster with a white ring on it advertises it at the cinema. It took a long time to take off, but once word of mouth began, theatres were packed with ppl of all ages, with more or less no idea what they were about to watch.
I've seen it twice now and the 2nd time I had the joy of looking around me every now and then at the audience, every set of eyes was pried wide open, people were sinking in to their seats, like children pulling the covers over their head to hide from the boogieman.
I want to spill the beans on all the great scenes in this movie, but it's the kind of film you have to go in to knowing as little as possible, and I suggest that be the case. Let's hope this brave new style of horror takes off and we finally see the end of pathetic teen crap like Scream, I Know What You Did... etc.