Great ideas somehow lead to a mediocre movie!

Rating: 4/10 (20 June 2009)

I have to admit I was really excited about seeing this movie. Those who shared my opinions about movies on the IMDb have regularly cited THE RING as being a classic movie in the vein of such movies as THE EXORCIST or a proper horror movie (when the citation is provided in comments related to movies I hated such as JEEPERS CREEPERS). As such, I felt I was being provided with some good reliable advice. Unknowingly I was in for such a huge disappointment.
Indeed, THE RING proved to be an even bigger disappointment for me than THE HAUNTING (the original not the remake).
The plot of THE RING is as follows - people come into possession of a videotape that when viewed leads to their death 7 days after. This idea is great on paper and indeed the movie does take some positive steps to bring this concept to life.
In the movie's favour are some excellent scenes that one never sees coming. These scenes are bolstered by some decent camera-work and suspense music in the background. The producers take the wise path of psychological horror - the movie is devoid of gore, silly CGI-generated monsters and speedied up action sequences that most movies from its time are notorious for. It was for perhaps these reasons that people perceive it as a classic. But the view of such people is misplaced - THE RING is not a classic, just something better than many movies of its time. This was the case until SAW came along to become what is easily the best movie of the 2000s decade.
But I return to the good points about THE RING. A good performance from the lead actress, Naomi Watts, helps the proceedings. The young actor playing the kid with psychic powers, David Dorfman, deserves a special mention.
Unfortunately, the material the actors are forced to work with is devoid of sustained suspense, tension or emotion. THE RING is certainly NOT scary. I will make a few comparisons to other movies to illustrate what THE RING should have contained.

Fear of the unknown. THE RING touches upon this important element of psychological horror but without success. We don't know where the videotape came from, who made it or who is controlling the malevolent forces leading to the deaths of its viewers. Too many unanswered questions, too many scenes of boredom and too many inconsistencies in tone ensure the idea falls flat. In contrast, THE EXORCIST was successful in this respect because the unknown element was the demon possessing Regan. We didn't know what it was, where it came from, or what it would do next. We knew the child was suffering but didn't know just what was going on inside. For these reasons, THE EXORCIST rightly retains the status of a classic horror movie, even 36 years after its release.

Fear of impending doom. THE RING brings to us the idea of someone knowing they will die in 7 days time. But, there is no reaction from characters put in this position. Not one character seems to be scared by the risk of death. As such, the fear of impending doom is non-existent, even though this should be the main aspect to carry the movie. In contrast, THE OMEN shows us how the fear of impending doom creeps up on the characters. We know these characters are doomed, they become scared, they turn on one another, they seek answers from the Holy Bible, they trace their steps back to find out where the malevolent force originated from and try to prevent disaster.

A malevolent force to battle against. THE RING reveals a malevolent force that is behind the deaths of those watching the notorious videotape. The force is a young girl named Samara but she has no identity, no motives and no direction. She is just an evil girl who kills because she sees herself as being ignored. Good effects are used to make the girl seem freaky but we never find out HOW she kills these people. Also, her connection to the videotape itself is very unclear. In contrast, THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE provides a malevolent force in the form of a family of psychopaths. We know they once worked in a slaughterhouse and somehow turned from killing animals to killing humans. The menacing spectre of Leatherface and the symbols of death in the family's house consistently haunt us. It draws us in and never lets us out. We also know how they kill.

Appropriate ending. THE RING doesn't even have a proper ending. Due to the subject matter and the concepts brought to the screen, the producers were unable to go for the usual Hollywood-style happy ending where everyone turns out to be fine, the monsters are dead, malevolent forces are banished and everyone lives happily ever after. So what did the producers do? They just stopped the movie. In other words, there is no ending. In contrast, who could forget the ending of Alfred Hitchcock's classic, PSYCHO? In PSYCHO, Norman Bates is shown to have a split personality and by the end, his sane half has lost the battle. The final scene of that movie remains one of the most disturbing committed to film and is certainly no happy cop-out ending. This is just one reason why PSYCHO remains one of the greatest horror/suspense movies of all time.

I have used four classic horror movies as examples to illustrate where THE RING borrowed ideas from and what it aimed to be but failed to be. Its success was due purely to timing of its release.
In short, THE RING is a very over-hyped, mediocre movie that I do not recommend. Instead, I would advise readers of my comment to check out the classics I have outlined if they have not already done so.