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The Ring (2002)

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From Time Out Film Guide

You'll be at an advantage, watching this remake, if you've already seen Hideo Nakata's classic modern chiller Ring. The Japanese original is more creepy for being insidiously mysterious. To be fair, however, Verbinski's more expensive revamp treats it with a surprising degree of respect. The central conceit is the same urban legend teaser: the video tape which brings death to all those who see it, exactly seven days later. Watts grits her teeth again as a newspaper reporter whose niece is among a spate of perplexing teenage fatalities. At first she's sceptical about the notion of a killer vid connecting the victims, but the enigmatic images on the tape convince her to take it seriously. If the testimonies are true, however, she has only a week to live. It's symptomatic of this version that the said video plays more like conspicuously art directed MTV surrealism than Nakata's haunting, rough-hewn artefact. Heavier on back-story, the remake loses some of the goose pimple factor through dogged over-elaboration, even muffling what was its predecessor's hairiest set piece. Not everything it might have been, then, but decent enough to have you tracking down the original.

Author: TJ

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Tom said...

Posted on Feb 15 2010 17:45 Is The Ring a good horror film or a guilty pleasure? In a lot of ways, the film seems beyond silly. Anyhone who views a cursed video tape dies exactly one week afterwards. Fortunately the filmmakers deliver on their craft and create an eerie mix of detective story meeting the macabre. The pacing is adroit enough that the viewer doesn’t have time to reflect upon what might happen if the video were to be posted on YouTube, but they perhaps indulge in a few too many horror clichés: children and animals seem to “know” what is really going on, mental illness is the product of evil spirits… but the film, a remake of Asian horror hit, Ringu, consistently scores more chills than the occasional groan. Finally another horror film that recognizes the difference between gory and scary.

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