This film scared the **** out of me!

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2003)

Yeah, I am just back from a two-week holiday on a Greek island, where I saw this film at a open air cinema. I think my situation at the time influenced my experience: I was alone at the time (someone else were coming to live with me four days later), there were no people I knew in the audience, it was just me and my need to follow the creepy story. Afterwards, I walked home through sparsely-lit streets to the empty hotel-room I lived in. Luckily, I saw the late screening, which ended at about 1 am, otherwise the night would have been 2 hours longer. I went to sleep at about 2 am, for a few hours. At some time, I had a nightmare where I "saw" an image from the videotape in the film, and I woke up. I didn´t dare to close my eyes again, instead I looked around the room, fearing that Samara was there. I finally checked my watch, and luckily it was 5.30 am, because at 6 the sun started to shine through the window. For the next three nights, I had a hard time sleeping through the night. Believe me, this film can do this to you! I can understand that people who have seen the film on video or DVD, can say: - Nah, this isn´t scary! But if you have several friends around you, you can pause or stop the film, go out for popcorn etc., and that can diminish the effect of the film, but I am telling you, if you see the film under the same circumstances that I saw it, it can keep you awake at night. As for the film itself, it is very detailed, well worked out by the filmmakers. Instead of gore, Verbinski uses mood to create the scary elements. I liked the way he, in essentially non-scary scenes, focused on weird-looking characters and creepy sound-effects for chills. Check out the scene where Rachel talks to the female doctor, while a retarded boy turns around on a carousel in need of oiling. Warning: The following contains *SPOILERS*! I have read several of the comments posted here in order to recollect the details in the film. I´d like to mention the (possible) significance of the Biblical names given to the main characters. I haven´t read ALL of the previous comments, so I don´t know if it has been mentioned before, but here goes: Rachel. In the Bible, Rachel was the wife of Jacob, and she was barren. But then, by a wonder of God, she was able to have a child.
My interpretation is this: If, as suggested in the film, the Morgans used black magic to have Samara, is it possible that Rachel used white magic to have Aiden? When you see him in the film, he looks weird, but he is creepily well-behaved no matter what he does. And he has the ability to to communicate with Samara. And is this the reason Noah treats her with so little respect, because he knows that he isn´t actually Aidens father, because he was conceived supernaturally? I read some previous comments saying that Rachel looked too good to be convincing as a mother, could this be the reason? Noah. In the Bible, Noah built the Ark, to save horses (and other animals) from a flood. So, symbolically, Noah is a saviour of horses. Samara, on the other hand, hates horses, because they kept her awake at night, and she used her powers to kill them. Well, they didn´t really keep her awake, because she never sleeps, but she hated her parents who bred and owned horses.... The reason she communicated this through Aiden, was probably to lead Rachel and Noah to her "room" in the barn.
Anyway, this could be the reason she comes to kill Noah at the end. I totally disagree with commenters who write that the film falls apart at the end because what happens is unlikely. If you read folklore, something that is regular, is that a haunting stops once a victim of a murder is buried in Christian soil. But this is a horror-film. In Halloween, Michael Myers is killed, or mortally wounded three times at the end, but he survives.
So does the villain here. Also, if you watch the scene at the well beneath the cabin, it is Rachel who jumps down there - experiencing exactly what Samara did - while Noah behaves like a wimp. That could be another reason why Samara kills Noah and not Rachel, beside the Biblical-name-symbolism. This leads to the finale where Rachel "finds out" that copying the tape can save you, but as mentioned above, there are several hints that this is just false security, and that Samara might be coming soon to a TV-set near Aiden.
Also, Rebecca is a Biblical name, but I haven´t checked it out. I noticed some similarities in the story of her and the dead teenagers, and the plot of the novel Dracula. In Dracula, the count goes to England by boat, and kills the crew, while Renfield is left alive to announce the coming of Dracula, "a John the Baptist to Draculas satanic Christ". In The Ring, the four teenagers die, while Rebecca is left alive to announce Samaras coming, or at least help Rachel solve the mystery. One note: I saw Daveigh Chase´s wonderful acceptance speech for the Best Villain-award at this year´s MTV Movie Awards, she ended it with the line: - Everyone will suffer! I heard her say it in the trailer for the film, but I didn´t hear her say it in the film, although I listened closely for it. But I have read in other comments that it is in the film, too, so I guess the sound-level was just too low in the cinema where I saw it.