|
To be completely fair, The Ring is first and foremost
a genre flick. There is a definite ideology it sticks to,
that whole things-that-go-bump-in-the-night aesthetic. Except
here, they’re bumping on the TV set.
But at the same time that it adheres to the genre formula,
The Ring also has a certain deconstructionist stance
hidden in its structure. The videotape in the film, the one
whose viewers die seven days after watching, is pure surrealist
glory, resembling nothing less than that infamous collaboration
between surrealism gods Buñuel and Dalí, Un
Chien Andalou. This is the horror film getting back to
its basics, that world between dreams and reality, the one
not quite real enough to believe but definitely real enough
to hurt you. And watching The Ring is like being in
a prolonged dream state, one that’s beautiful and awful, one
that digs its way into your mind and grabs you and forces
you to watch.
The film opens terrifically, with two teenage girls discussing
the legend of that nasty video. One of the girls claims to
have seen the tape exactly seven days before. Care to guess
what happens? Suffice it to say that it is a great way to
get started, a jolt that’s like a defibrillator to the heart.
Enter Rachel Keller (Watts), the aunt of the girl
who dies at the beginning. Intrigued by rumors she hears from
her niece’s friends, and the fact that three other people
who saw the tape died on the same day her niece did, Rachel,
who happens to be an investigative reporter, decides to dig
deeper. She does find the tape, and she watches it, and so
do we (what does that mean for us, huh?). She then gets a
phone call saying “Seven days,” which freaks her out sufficiently
enough to be reluctant to show anyone else the tape, which
she takes with her. After showing the tape to her techno-geek
friend, Noah (Henderson), the two team up and begin
to uncover information as to the origins of the tape, which
appears to have never been made, and yet, there it is.
The investigation angle to The Ring is its only real
weak aspect. It becomes a little too Nancy Drew, focusing
on the process of finding the information when it should instead
be more interested in the information itself. There never
really are any feelings of revelation during this investigation,
when the pieces of the puzzle should seem more relevant than
they do.
But it’s a small flaw, and director Gore Verbinski
makes up for any storytelling missteps with an incredible
amount of atmosphere and a moody buildup that reaches a maximum
tension level and stretches beyond that. This is a film brimming
with incredible images, infused with a dread so tangible that
it stands thick in the air. In a time when brain-dead and
formulaic slasher flicks stand for horror, it’s refreshing
to come across a horror film that really understands what
horror is, that knows that blood and guts are never as scary
as the words “Everyone will suffer” whispered by a nine-year-old
little girl. And Ehren Kruger’s script, while deceptively
simple, understands how, when said within a certain context,
the simplest words can be bone-chilling. “You let her out?”
Rachel’s son Aidan (Dorfman) asks at one point, and
the implications of those four words are enough to set the
mood of the entire coda of the film.
And in the end, despite a few theatrical moments that feel
right in being there, The Ring really is more about
minimalism and suggestion than it is about downright horror.
There are moments of visual and aural brilliance, encircled
by an atmosphere that asserts itself as a reality too terrifying
to be fake. So, before you die, go see The Ring. (Sorry,
I couldn’t help it.)
—Cole Sowell
|
out of 5
While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video... 
