scariest movie in years

Rating: 10/10 (14 April 2005)

I don't scare easily. Usually, movies that are supposed to be scary just roll off my back. That's not to say that I don't love a good horror film; I'm susceptible to a few shudders in a good horror movie, but generally I can watch one and be able to sleep at night afterward.
Not so "The Ring". This movie scared the s*** out of me. I can't put it any less crudely than that; something about it just resonated with me more than with other horror movies. "The Ring" was the scariest movie I've seen in a very long time; not even classics like "Halloween" or "Psycho" approach this level of terror.
I confess I've never seen the original Japanese film on which that was based, so I'm not in a position to compare the two; and I feel that it would be unfair to do so anyway. "The Ring" stands alone as a great movie just as a movie based on a book can stand alone as a great movie, and that's what's important. The cast is top-notch; Naomi Watts, as Rachel, gives the best performance I've ever seen her give. It's a career-defining moment. Brian Cox also stands out as the long-suffering father of the little girl, Samara, who as played by Daveigh Chase may be the most chilling movie villain of all time. That she could do such a terrible thing and feel no remorse at all, being a little girl, it's just scary because it's so unexpected. The climax, where we see her crawl out of the TV to kill Noah (Martin Henderson, who along with David Dorfman as Rachel's son Aidan is credible and believable in his role) is just the scariest thing I think I've ever seen. I remember when I was little, watching "Carrie", with this girl moving things with her mind, trapping all these people in a gym and killing them with an unholy bloodbath, being scared by that. I was not as scared by that when I was 10 as I was by the climax of "The Ring" at 27. I still get chills thinking of that scene, and that little girl.
The idea of being killed 7 days after watching a videotape didn't seem that scary to me, and I confess that when it was in theaters I had written it off as just another dumb teen horror movie along the lines of "Urban Legends" or "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Obviously I was way off, and I'm glad I gave into all the people who told me I had to watch it. I'm not sure if I can actually say that "The Ring" is the scariest movie of all time, but it's definitely close.