The Ring Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)October 21st, 2002
The Ring
Matinee and snacks
I have to say, this movie is pretty deliciously scary. You know it's good when the little prologue scene is enough to make you wiggle and pick your feet up and shout at the characters - and you don't have ANY idea what is going on yet. I could be an arrogant ponce and chalk up my reaction (to the scene with the two vulnerably dressed teenagers walking in their huge, empty house) to having the insight that comes with a broad cinematic vocabulary. Who are we kidding? I'm no Pauline Kael, and what I was watching there up on screen was pure scary-ass good filmmaking.
As my loyal readers may recall, I saw feardotcom because it was thematically similar to this film, and I wanted to do a little fun compare contrast thing with it. But now, having seen both, I can say that beyond featuring an electronic medium that kills everyone who sees it in a finite amount of time, these films have nothing - nothing - in common. There goes the fun, but I am truly glad that my aborted little project allowed me to see The Ring. While we were eyerolling and yawning in feardotcom, we were gripping each other, our coats, or our faces during The Ring.
I have always enjoyed Good scary movies - Halloween, The Omen, The Shining, even Scream, and I have often enjoyed silly scary movies - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream 3. I may need some time to pass to make it official, but The Ring is a Good scary movie. How do I know? We don't know what the ring is, and the film doesn't tell us, until the end, and that, obliquely. Now, when I look at the poster (ring of white light around the title) I get freaked out. That speaks effectiveness to me.
Then add a passel strong actors, actors who make you feel it, like Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, and haunted child David Dorfman, and a winding mystery of a script by Ehren Kruger (adapted from Kôji Suzuki's novel Ringu). All in all, the whole package is very effective. The video itself (which we get to watch, by the way) is not as horrifying as the images depicted in feardotcom, but somehow, its surreality is all the more spooky for being so seemingly benign. It's a creepy rebus from an unknowable source (granted, some of feardotcom shares this as well) with a mystery to solve in just one week. The film itself is only very mildly gory. Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive) may never be in a "regular" movie, but if she can imbue Lynch with any meaning or depth, she does double duty on this film. Her on-screen child, Aidan, played by Dorfman, is wise and hollowed out in a way reminiscent of Haley Joel Osment's character in the Sixth Sense.
Who directed it? Some auteur slumming in a new genre and as a result reinventing it? Yes and no, - it's Gore Verbinski. Some of his movies people just didn't go see, because they thought, "Mouse Hunt? That looks ridiculous." I own and watch Mouse Hunt every couple of months. Or, "The Mexican? I dunno, looks like Hollywood tripe." It was an independent little adventure film with good characters that happened to star Hollywood's biggest cash cows. Well when I first got the press kit for The Ring, I thought, "A video tape that kills you? That's Silence of the Hams! Skip." I have seen all three of these films and I would be happy to discuss them at length on their deeper layers and merits, but the short version is: don't judge a book by its cover. And see The Ring. The website is pretty scary too! Ring-themovie.com. That should give you a taste of the tone.
And rent Mouse Hunt. It's surprisingly dark and cynical and delicious underneath the Nathan Lane wakka wakka.
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These reviews (c) 2002 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks.
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