Le Cercle : The Ring

I think Aiden is way more frightening than Samara.

If you watch the video and then the phone rings, you've got a week to wait, to find out what it will bring, or rather what it will take away, as it's quite a significant price you have to pay, just for pressing play, to see Samara spring.

Still a great piece of horror film making.

The Ring, an American remake of the Japanese film "Ringu", is in my honest opinion a spectacular and enthralling film. The writing, directing, performances and replay value are amazing in and of themselves. I especially love the premise, and I will review this movie as it's own film, not a remake. What really makes it wonderful is the incredible performances and suspense. I really love all the actors' and actresses' dedication and believability, there being very memorable deliverances of lines and scenes after the film is over. The suspense is top-notch, because of how well the movie is played out and how creepy and fun the material is, that I was both eyes on the screen every second. Naomi Watts is radiant and brilliant; the scenes where she slowly puts the pieces of the puzzle together, or uncovers something dark and haunting are haunting themself because of how marvelous she makes this material.

Do not get me wrong, the material itself is great, but it would have been nothing were it not for the cast. The characters are all interesting, and the main story is quite saddening and effective when it is slowly revealed through many different aspects. While it seems as though the main threat, a "killer videotape", would be a ridiculous and stupid threat, hard to make convincing, it undoubtedly works to the fullest here and is entirely convincing, the videotape's images and the events themselves all being very interesting and entertaining. While the movie is not a masterpiece, it is not too short from it, having a great replay value and being one of the top 20 most effective horrors of the 00s, in my opinion. I am glad it receives a lot of positive reception, for it deserves every bit of it.

The Ring usually gets a bad rep for being "too slow" and some people even say that "nothing happens" in the movie. Unless you have ADD or something, you have to at least appreciate what Gore Verbinski achieved in 2002. What he did was he basically took the premise of Ringu, a good suspenseful Japanese horror flick and made it more suspenseful and filled with creepy visuals.

I am a huge horror fan, and this is one of the movies that unsettles me the most. The suspenseful pace, the incredible, beautiful but haunting visuals make this a unique experience. I love gory films, but this one relies a lot more on psychological horror and imagery to create scares. No jump scares, just good story telling.

The movie may not answer all the questions it creates, but the viewer, if he pays attention accordingly, will be able to figure them out for himself.

Unsettling to the bone, The Ring is one of my favorite horror films of all time. Truly underrated.

This film is the American take on the Japanese original and while it absorbs its source material intact, it twists around its formula a bit in order to make it fit its new surroundings. The story is the same: a journalist, after losing her niece to a mysterious circumstance, investigates and discovers a cursed videotape, which gives a viewer only seven days to live.

Like its predecessors, the film doesn't spend that much time on the supernatural elements, but focuses more on the mystery. However, The Ring features a lot more supernatural elements immediately and throughout the film than either previous version, perhaps to make more obvious and visceral the impending doom that faces our protagonist. Visually, The Ring has been injected with a shot of adrenaline, being less the brooding mystery of the original and more immediate and menacing. The color palette is colder than Ringu and the story is also more detached and focused on the ghostly mechanics than the human story, which leads the film to be more recognizably intimidating.

The story itself is a little more mysterious in that the backstory of our villain is rather thin and unexplained. Furthermore, the villain is clearly portrayed as senselessly malevolent; this weakens at least two significant scenes. The ending, I think, is more clever than the previous versions. I like that there is something to the relationship between the protagonist, Rachel, and her ally, Noah, but it still seems a little weak when compared to Ringu--where one line can effortlessly show the development in the relationship.

As far as a horror movie goes, The Ring is a blunt, but nonetheless creepy example. Losing some of the trappings of its predecessors helps simplify the story for faster flow and to create room for more visual creepiness, but also loses some of the complexity that helped the story have more depth. It's more of impressive frightfest than Ringu, but is a little weaker in story resonance. In the end, that makes The Ring just as effective overall: if you want more chills, catch this version. If you want more meat, catch Ringu. Decent entertainment. 7/10.