Ring Ring

With its definite nod to 'Psycho', this film is very entertaining and absorbing. The casting is spot-on and the performances are engaging throughout. Great production design and cinematography give this film a real Hollywood gloss and make it an easy film to recommend.

"Ring Ring" starts out as sort of an office comedy, where Will (Malcolm Goodwin) and Amber (Kirby Bliss Blanton) work at some sort of building supply and remodeling company making cold calls (their boss is Lou Ferrigno, who makes a "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" joke). The boss tells the staff that the company is closing, and Will, Amber, and another friend decide that if they can get the client list, they could start a company and convince the clients to use them instead (I know, but just go with it). So they break into the boss's office and use Will's phone to take photos of the client list.

They go out to a bar to celebrate, and Will hooks up with a hot girl (and he's also drunk beyond belief) and that causes him to leave his phone at the bar. Since it has the client list, it's really important to find, and so the next day, he and Amber use "Find my Phone" to find the location of the phone, and call a ride share to go get the phone back. In an amazing coincidence, the driver is Jacob, the guy who found (and then stole) the phone and he brings them to his house. He's not home (since he's in the car), so they break in. When they eventually go into his basement, he sneaks in and locks them in the basement.

I'm not at all sure what they were going for. The comedy was... OK, I guess. But I think it meant to get to horror or suspense but there was just nothing to it. I mean, nothing really happens. After they are locked in the basement, we might be expecting "horror" or scary stuff but, no, they just stay in the basement and Jacob stays upstairs getting high. The movie is less than an hour and fifteen minutes long, and stuff doesn't really start to happen until an hour into it. And even then, it's not very much.

The shortness of the movie is extra weird since there is stuff hinted at that would have been interesting to know and we don't learn any of it. Amber is a druggy who got arrested and her car was seized, and she told Will that it was for possession, but she whispers to Jacob what it really was and he reacted like it was something worse. But we never find out. There's a seemingly important backstory about Jacob, his mother, and a friend which is hinted at in a conversation that lasts a couple of minutes and then it's dropped. And the ending... wow, it's bad. Really bad.

The three leads give strong performances all around, but just, bleh.

Three likable culprits steal the client-list from the company that just let everyone go without even severance. They lose the phone with the list in it and break into the house they track it to. This house is inhabited by the son who is the only living member of his family. When his beloved mom died of cancer he put her into the basement freezer thereby enabling him to cash her SSA checks, which therefor enabled him to keep getting high and make his car payments so he can drive for Ryde. Madness ensues.

Ring, Ring is a film about some office workers who steal a client list when they are let go from their jobs. The list is on a cellphone that goes missing. They set out to find the cellphone only to be lead to a house that they enter and become locked in by a junkie. Who's gonna make it out? This is the plot.

Let's start with the fact that this is and indie, low budget film. The filming isn't polished and while the actors aren't well seasoned, I've seen worse. The story isn't a bad one but it lacks any real amount of depth, has very little character building and there's no real reason to invest in any of the characters. It makes for a slow watch that isn't very interesting.

So, why 4 stars?

Well, I'd give it 3.5 if I could. I can appreciate the struggle of low budget film and this wasn't an unbearable watch. The actors weren't THAT bad. Some of them, maybe but the three lead characters did a decent enough job. I want to give credit where it is due and like I said, I've seen far worse.

Would I recommend it?

Depends on who asks. If you are a horror fan, you probably will not be satisfied. If you are looking for a serious thriller, you will also be left unsatisfied. If you are looking to kill some time and you can tolerate low budget indies, this might work for you. Everyone else will probably want to skip it.

I am so sick to death of IMDB doing nothing about new release movies being flooded with fake reviews to make it sell a movie.

The movie is not scary, funny, great or worth a rental. Who rents these days any way?

In fact this has got to be the worst ending let down to any movie of 2019.

It's not terribly made, the acting is half decent, plot is ok, fine editing etc, thats all fine. It has an anticlimax ending and went no where but downhill. Why bother to set up characters with no pay-off for this rushed ending that made it seem like it should have been either a short indie film on YouTube or a 25 minute long episide of Goosebumps?

Avoid it, you'll hate wasting your time on this. Time that you will never get back. No one should recommend half a movie with a terribly rushed ending.