terrific

Rating: 10/10 (22 September 2006)

The best thing about THE RING - and there's a lot of good things in it - is that this is a horror film that doesn't insult your intelligence. Forget about that "don't go in that dark place/open the door to the creepy axe-murderer" kind of thing. You won't get any of that here, I promise.
Basically, this is a story "Ã la Sherlock Holmes": there's a murder (actually 4 murders). In comes Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), the aunt of one of the victims. On the day of her niece's funeral, she meets some of the teenager's friends that tell Rachel about this tape. Rachel's also a journalist and starts investigating the murders on her own. The clues will soon bring her to the possession of the accursed tape. She watches it. Then, everything gets really creepy.
The photography is superb! The movie has a greyish hue all over it, making the story even more brooding and menacing. The setting is Seattle, a city already plagued by near constant cloudy and rainy weather. You get the feeling that Verbinsky's been watching a lot of Ingmar Bergman and Kubrik as inspiration. The shots, during the wake, with Aidan framed by the corridors and staircase reminded me o "The Shinning"; also, the way time goes by is very much "shinningish".
The plot takes us through the investigation, as we watch Rachel Keller putting together the pieces around this puzzling death. At the same time, she has to come to grips with her child - Aidan, who never calls her "mum" - and her estranged ex-boyfriend, Noah.
When finally Rachel puts the puzzle together, it still doesn't make sense. We can't understand how did that tape got recorded in the first place. This was the reason some people criticized the film, but it goes to show that sometimes you don't need to show everything. Suffice to say that the murderer is not human.
Kudos to the director and the crew, and also for superb performances all around. This film has a great dramatic depth and a lot of character development, even though the story centres more on the investigation than the synergies between characters. The plot goes around the mystery, with great editing.