The Ring (2002) - **The Ring 2 Reviewed below this

Rarely does a horror movie scare us so badly that we refuse to watch it again alone. The Ring is one such movie. We had the good fortune of seeing it at a sneak preview, before anyone warned us how scary it was. There are several scenes that literally had some of us jumping out of our chairs, begging for it to stop, beggin for Samara to stop creeping us out. The film is unsettling. Bone-chilling. Haunting. It is without question worthy of this list. We recommend that you buy it, but we’re hardly in a position to suggest you watch it alone. That’s something we ourselves cannot do. A little on the tamer side was the original Japanese version called “Ringu”. However, that was creepy, too.

Plot summary for The Ring:
OK, so there’s this movie. And if you write about it and DON’T include it in your list of ultimate horror films, you will die in seven days. No, not really. We hope! The Ring is the story of a reporter investigating the mysterious death of her niece. The trail begins with a video that her niece watched with friends a week before she died. Rumor has it that after you watch the video, you get a call informing you that you will die in seven days. Then, boom, seven days later, kaput. Finito. Arrivderci, sucker! The reporter’s investigation takes her down an increasingly dangerous path.

Memorable scene from The Ring:
The reporter (played by Naomi Watts) is on a ferry when she stops to pet a horse in its trailer. The animal is unsettled, acting skittish around the woman. In fact, the horse breaks free of the trailer and begins a mad dash along the ferry’s deck. It jumps overboard, clumsily falling along the ship’s side before disappearing beneath the waves. The passengers run to the stern just in time to see the water turn blood red as the ship’s propellers kill the spooked animal.

Memorable quote from The Ring:
“Seven days.”

Why we love The Ring:
First, there is the aforementioned video and the urban legend quality of it. Then there’s the aforementioned scene involving the horse. What is it about animals being spooked by the supernatural that scares us so much? I won’t even go into the appearance of Samara because she never sleeps and this will never be over. I must go to my happy place now.

Review of The Ring 2 (2005)

I’ll try to be nice, but the Ring 2 doesn’t even come close to measuring up to the first. It has its moments, but where the first one lets us use our imagination to fill in the creepy blanks, this one wants to show us everything - and be incredibly obvious.

Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) and her freak son Aidan (David Dorfman) move to Oregon to start again. The ONE copy they made of the tape is now circulated among punk ass teenagers who find it thrilling to wait until the seven days is almost up, then they make a copy and have someone else watch the tape. Cheating death has never been so fun, eh? Samara (Kelly Stables) shows back up, takes over Aidan and wants Rachel to be her mommy. That’s pretty much all you need to know. Maybe one or two scares are there, but overall it’s just kind of boring and uses a lot of the same plot devices as the first. I can forgive a bad movie - I’ve seen countless ones - and this isn’t terrible, but save it for a rental or cable if at all. I can’t be overly disappointed because I wasn’t expecting much. Hey, at least it delivered on that count.

Frightening Fact:
Fragments of the Ring video are subliminally shown in The Ring. The image of the ‘Ring’ can be seen for only a fraction of a second between the ferry/horse sequence and Rachel’s car drive to the Morgan’s farm on Moesko Island. You can also see the “Ring” in the opening credits when the DreamWorks SKG logo appears on screen.

Learn how to make your own Samara Morgan Halloween Costume!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2005 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Horror Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.