The Ring
Released October 18, 2002

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, disturbing images, language and some drug references

Starring: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Cox, Amber Tamblyn, Rachael Bella, Daveigh Chase

Novel: Koji Suzuki

Screenplay: Ehren Kruger

Director: Gore Verbinski

Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers Ó 2003
- You'll need a survivor pack

It is one thing to be scared while watching a film, and another to make sense of the experience. "The Ring" is supposed to be a suspense thriller cum horror, but lacks suspense; is meant to scare, but revolts; should cohesively pull together, but falls apart.

When a teenager watches a supposedly student film she dies seven days later. Apparently it’s going around. Others have tempted the video’s fate and suffered the consequences. A feisty journalist, Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), is onto a story and has a personal connection with the events as the deceased teenager is a family member and friend of her young son (now that’s stretching the realm of possibilities, but there could be a chance of it happening, but because we never see them together it doesn’t entirely convince unless you generously give the chance of the scenario the benefit of the doubt).

Keller uses, conveniently, the services of a videographer, Noah (Martin Henderson), while she does her own research (which in movies looks somewhat easy and without complication). The plot thickens, as there is a link between a homestead in the rangers where someone died while watching the video, and a young girl and her parents; the mother featured in the dangerous and mysterious video, but how the teenager’s death links to the unfolding events is uncertain.

Further complications arise for the audience when the film delights in itself, pretentiously showcasing elegant film making technique but the impressive imagery cannot be comprehended. I don’t mind a film going esoteric or supernatural but here there is no way to understand the filmmaker’s intentions. The significance that flies were to have in this film becomes insignificant as who knows. And some scenes that could be deemed worthy of shock value fall into the same category.

Although I was sceptical about the premise as I started watching there were some intriguing notions, which get splattered against the obligatory Hollywood formulaic treatment. I liked how the nature of truth, reality, belief and looking (even a hint of how videos and television are "killing" us) are introduced and then to my disappointment, but not surprise, are relegated to nothing but backdrops against the onslaught of nonsensical plot developments and spectacle to titillate.

There is even theological substance to garner, albeit taking it out of the text, at best sub textual – in "The Ring" the characters show an unhealthy curiosity with discovering the truth about something that can be potentially treacherous, shades of Adam and Eve ascertaining the knowledge of good and evil, against better advice, and so they die. Yet, nothing to these heights of horrific drama is skilfully executed.

Watts are Henderson as the leads are one-dimensional, running around to the duties of the plot rather than being living and breathing characters. The boy – played by David Dorfman – is strangely creepy and straight from The Sixth Sense handbook for filmmakers who flatter those they admire by using their material, and the producers who saw a good idea work before and want to recycle the concept to get "bums on seats". Bulging eyes with a pallid complexion who speaks like a child missing out on a normal childhood, he makes Haley Joel Osment’s haunting portrayal as a disturbed boy in The Sixth Sense look attractive. Dorfman’s Aidan is like the fantasy undertones of a character out of the Hammer horrors, and the child antagonist from The Omen. In no way can I connect or be interested in any of these characters.

This is a dark film with some penetrating imagery that strikes the senses, spoiled by unsavoury shots of biological extremes, and unnecessary (seemingly staged) use of profanity. It gets worse as it goes on with contrivances and predictability aplenty. If it made any kind of indelible impression on me then the absence of father figures in the lives of the children is notable, and the suffering of the young girl, in which her resurgence from the grave echoes a hope for her redemption, is touching and profound.