Why can't Hollywood make more films like this?

Rating: Null/10 (18 April 2004)

Taken at mere face value, The Ring, has much going for it, in spite of some small minuses. It's no secret, of course, that it is a remake of a Japanese film based upon a Japanese novel, which is in turn based upon an obscure text about people dying after reading a book. So while it isn't quite as original as it appears, it deserves major kudos for not going down the same road as almost every other Hollywood cookie cutter horror film of the past fifteen years.
I'll deal with the negatives before I go into the positives. They won't take long. First of all, there's people who compare this film to The Sixth Sense simply because it has a somewhat spooky child as one of the main characters. The Sixth Sense was a copy, and not a very good one at that, of the Richard Matheson novel A Stir Of Echoes, out of which a far superior film of almost the same name was made. The reason Stir Of Echoes was far superior to The Sixth Sense, ability to acknowledge its source material aside, was that the child character was actually likeable. In The Ring, the child character is tedious and unsympathetic, a major problem that occurs in nearly every Hollywood film where children take part.
Second, as has been mentioned before, the equine deaths mentioned in this version are unnecessary and pointless. They add nothing to the character we're supposed to be afraid of. The screen time used to detail this element could have been put to better use in linking the episodic days together with more strength.
The strengths of this film can also be mistaken for weaknesses. For one thing, it is good that we know next to nothing about the little girl whose voice we hear after the video is watched. All we need to know about her is that she has had a harsh, tragic life, one that she is none too happy about. The tagline that you see a ring before you die is pretty literal, but it's learning why one sees a ring that makes this part of the film interesting. In essence, the film knows what to tell the viewer and when, which is essential in making any horror film work. This is one of the few Hollywood films that gives our imagination something to do.
Another high point of the film is the special effects, or the restrained usage thereof. So many horror films rely on numerous effects to paint this or that character to be the most horrific thing you'll ever see on celluloid. The problem is that the viewer winds up drowned in so many effects that they become numb to what they're supposed to be horrified by. In The Ring, videotape viewings aside, the special effects are sparse and, at least by appearance, mostly practical. The points when it stops looking "real" are those when it suits the story not to do so. Which only helps the situation. I'd rather have five minutes of "bad" special effects in a two hour film than two hours of being drowned in "good" ones that only seem to remind me that they are effects.
If original ideas, or at least ones that don't resemble every other that is coming out at the time, were more frequent in Hollywood, it would be safe to say that The Ring would not be getting as much praise as it is. However, since there's no jingoism, propaganda, or feel-good crap to be found here, The Ring is indeed a rare product from Hollywood. The absence of any obvious pandering to focus groups alone makes The Ring worthwhile. In all, I give it an eight out of ten.