Great Horror Film

Rating: 10/10 (19 February 2006)

First i would like to say those of you who saw Ringu first should not even comment on this film. Why? because once you see one of them you begin having expectations for the other. Once one scares the crap out of you do you really believe the other one is going to scare you as much?? For those of us that did not see Ringu first, this was the horror movie we have all been waiting for. No pyschos with knives. No blood/gore. I found in some of the comments that this movie was unoriginal and in some of the other comments the movie did not follow the horror guidelines...well those two statements are pretty much contradictory which means those people are just blabbing for attention. If you are looking for an original horror movie i guess you can count out scream 1, 2, and 3, all the Friday the 13th and Jason movies, all the psycho movies ie. Silence of the Lambs, etc. Is it possible for a horror movie to be original?? The Ring is about as close as you can get to original.
And now to blast away the people who gave negative reviews even further. Most of us know that what we fear the most is the unknown. The origin of Samara and her powers are not revealed to us. But honestly do we have to know? Many things do not need explained but will still scare the crap out of people. If you ever thought you saw a ghost you would neither care or think about how it got there and you would be scared out of your wits. Why are you scared? Because most supernatural phenomena cannot be explained and you cannot possibly understand it. Samara is pure evil...that is all we need to know to be scared of her...the most dreadful sadistic girl you can imagine. She has the frightening ability to burn horrific images into your mind and drive you crazy, all the while you feel your death approaching. This is how scary Samara is...and how scary the movie is. And you don't even need to know a thing about Samara to be scared.
The story of this movie is actually well thought of. Contrary to what you may read in some of the negative reviews, this movie does have a great story and is not exactly difficult to follow. I saw one review where one person said that the movie never explained the chronology of events about the horses and how the child, Samara, affected the horses. Are you kidding?? This was fully explained. Anna Morgan was driven insane by the images Samara was revealing to her in her mind. Anna and Richard Morgan decided to banish Samara to their barn, hoping the separation would help stop all of it. While Samara was in the barn, she grew annoyed of the horses and decided to drive them insane. This was an act of revenge for being put in the barn.
Now lets talk about the two things that make up a great movie...story and acting. The story is pretty much original, especially the scare tactics. Some of you say they are cheap. Cheap????? They scared the crap out of me. Quick flashes of distorted faces and horrific images do not allow the brain to settle/desensitize. Seconds or Minutes after each "scare" that one quick moment is etched into your mind...the summation of all these moments is the main reason why many of us are still scared of this movie even 10 days after we first watched it. The split-second shots of katie's face and Samara's eye did it for me. The storyline is understandable. Some of these people comment about how the story just doesn't make sense. Well I'm sure if they popped in the movie one more time and stopped whining about how this isn't a Friday the 13th or Scream Stabber movie, they would be able to follow the story pretty easily. As for the acting...well Naomi Watts was perfect and the others, while not being excellent, did an good enough job to where their bad acting did not take away from the film.
Because this film has the originality that most horror films do not, and because this movie scared the crap out of me, i have no choice but to give this movie a 10 out of 10 rating