damp squib remake

Rating: 5/10 (13 November 2003)

"Candyman, Candyman, Candyman"
I'm sorry, I don't know what got into me.
Japan: 1998. A little known horror movie was released under the name of 'Ring'. Ring wasn't a bad film, it wasn't a great film, it wasn't very original (though it wasn't a total rip off) or scary, but it wasn't rubbish. I gave it 6/10. A fair score.
America: 2002. Hollywood smeared its glossy mits all over the Japanese film, and we were given: 'The Ring'.
The Ring centres on the story of a video tape, and if you watch the tape, within seven days: you die. "It's truly terrifying" said some guy in some review on amazon.com, "What the f**k?" said The_Void just a second ago, a haunted video tape? Run away! Run away! Lame. What's next? A haunted mobile phone? Send a text and die? No, no how about a haunted can of deodorant, smell bad or die? Or a haunted website? Oh wait.
Anyway, let's just ignore the lameness of the storyline for a second. The film starts off with two girls in a room and one of them tells the other one about a piece of film she has watched and that if you watch that film, within seven days, you die. That was seven days ago. I'm sure I don't need to spell out what happens next...the girl who watched the tape dies with a silly look on her face and the other one goes insane. I just hope she never meets my friend, he can do this really strange face where he sort of scrunches his lips together and goes cross eyed, Eek. The one here sucks, though.
Think that was bad? sheesh, that was the best bit.
This film is probably better for the people who saw it before seeing the original. The reason for that is that this film is almost a carbon copy of the original, which is understandable because that's the nature of remakes but in the move from east to west, they forgot to transfer the two best things about the original: its look and holes in the story. The original was nice and grainy, which made it all the more frightening. I mean, OK, its hard to scare when your centrepiece is a haunted piece of plastic but the grainy picture and the darkness of it went some way to making it frightening, the fact that it was glossy meant that the picture was clear and easy on the eyes, and therefore the scares were kept down to a minimum. Which is a good thing in say, a kids movie for example, but not in a horror.
The second thing: The holes in the story. Usually plot holes are looked down on, but I don't mean plot holes, I'm referring to the fact that the original left several stones unturned, or only partially revealed. I think that someone forgot to tell Hollywood that sometimes the unexplained is more scary than the understandable, after all that's everyone's principal fear: The great unknown.
The main meat of the story comes when a reporter (Naomi Watts) inadvertently views the video tape, then lets her friend watch it, and then her son watches it without her permission (typical kid). Naomi and her friend then have seven days to avert disaster, and save the life of her son. They do this by tracking down the origin of the haunted video piece of plastic and finding out about the girl in the tape, Samara. To the films credit, it moves at a nice pace, and keeps your interest fairly well. Then again, that's to the credit of the original really, not the remake.
To my knowledge, this was my first encounter with Naomi Watts. I can't say I was impressed. I mean, her performance in this wasn't bad, and it may be my contempt for the film that's clouding my vision, but after all the great things I'd heard about the woman, I was expecting more. More did come however on my viewing of 'Mulholland Dr.' and wow, what a step down from that to this, eeek, what was she thinking?
However, despite all the negativity so far, even this film has plus points, two of them in fact. The first one is the direction. In my opinion, the film is a credit to Gore Verbrinski, his directing is nicely done and the use of the camera is solid, it's just a shame about the rest of the movie. The second good thing about the movie is the soundtrack. The soundtrack itself is nothing to write home about, in fact I can barely even remember it, but at least it didn't resort to lots of heavy metal with a strong bass line like in so many other modern horror movies, that sort of music doesn't go down well at all in my opinion.
The film's ending is another one of those predictable twists in the style of 'The Sixth Sense' or 'The Others', you know, the ones that everyone likes. After Naomi and co have solved the mystery, they think all is well and they all go home. However, all is not well as Naomi's friend finds out when Samara comes out of the television set in one of the stupidest movie moments of all time and gets him. I couldn't have been the only one who saw that coming.