Why The Ring << Ringu

Rating: 6/10 (6 February 2003)

To put it simply where Ringu was elliptic, The Ring is a heavy-handed horror flick. Ringu mastered a blend of horrific fantasies with simple reality. The shuffling pace of its horror perfectly fitted the narrative structure: 'We want to know, to know only. But we have to experiment...'
Yes, this is kind of the same premise as most slasher movies like, say, Scream 3. The difference is Ringu concentrated on it, leaving behind every over-used scheme, building its story and its rhythm over the journalist's investigation. The Ring drifts from this, focusing not on the journalist's investigation but on the journalist herself, her lovely sixth-sense lucid little boy and, last but not least, her dull-blank ex-boyfriend. But developing the central character is definitely not the point: it's all about the horror itself, stupid!
'It's a remake, dude! Let's make it thoroughly understandable and bigger than life.'
Producing an American version means lots of out-of-the-box rough-tunings. So first they build the story around Naomi Watts, director Verbinski revels in nice close-ups of his star all along her 'seven day pitch'. Then they used every narrative and horror cheap trick available. Of course they jumped on the opportunity to build up that little boy that sees. In the way they designed a sad witness for the source of horror (oh, the poor cursed father!). The horror cheap tricks are mainly expensive special effects: sophisticated ugly make-up and some digital stuff, all ringing out of tune.
Eventually where is the horrific suggestive strength of Ringu? Why alleviate the original ending after dragging these leaden ballasts all along? When a movie/book is good enough there's no room for an adaptation. But I must be wrong since The Ring gathered more than $100m.