Plot Holes? Try paying attention.

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 2003)

**** MAJOR SPOILERS ****
After reading a sampling of the comments about this movie, I've been amazed at the number of people who criticize the movie for not providing answers to questions which it does answer, which are clearly being left for a sequel, and/or would be a total waste of time to explain clearly. To be clear on this point, I've seen the movie twice and have neither seen the original movies nor read the novels, so I haven't combed the earth looking for the answers to these questions.
1) Why is Noah killed and Rachel not? Honestly, were you even watching? Samara wants the story of what happened to her told, and while she was in the well, the video was her only way to spread her message. *Therefore* people who make a copy of the video are not killed because they help spread her story and her "evil." The significant images in the video tell the story of Samara's life in a very twisted way, which makes perfect sense since it originates from a very twisted mind.
2) How does the video get made? When the kids try to tape the football game in the hotel over her well, she is able to implant the images onto the tape. It's not explained how she does this, but there is a precedent. Remember the X-ray films with the strange images (dead horses, women with needles in them, etc.)? It's very subtle, but the implication is that Samara has the ability to put images she wants onto devices like cameras, X-rays, VCRs, TVs etc. Also, when they're exploring the barn, Noah notes pointedly that Samara had a TV to keep her company. One can presume that being alone with nothing but a TV contributed to this ability.

3) There are images on the video Samara couldn't have seen. I don't have the DVD handy to review, but the only image I recall that Samara could NOT have witnessed personally was Anna jumping from the cliff. However, since Samara has been implanting images in her mother's mind since birth it's not hard to believe that she could have "seen" her mother's suicide. In fact, I think that Samara probably caused her mother's suicide by showing her the image we see on the tape to drive her mad. Regardless, we never know that the image we see is in fact Anna jumping. It could simply be Samara's imagination of how it might have happened.
4) What is the deal with the assistant at the end, and why does it matter whether Samara's body is in the well or not? I've combined these two cause I think one answers the other...or will when the sequel comes out. I think Samara did a body snatch on the assistant. This didn't occur to me until the second time I watched it, but the assistant looks pretty much EXACTLY like what Samara would look like as a young woman. Anyway, I will grant that if you don't make that connection (which requires some imagination), neither question is answered.
I think an awful lot of people came into this movie with preconceptions about what it was going to be about (a video that kills people) and when the first few minutes of the movie seemed to confirm this, they basically tuned out. I nearly did the same myself when the story of the video was being told and all the friends scaring each other, then not scaring each other cliche was happening and the whole thing looked like it'd be another bad teen horror flick along the lines of Valentine's Day, etc. But it really went in a different (and much better) direction after that.