Rish's Reviews
First things first: I'm sure tyranist will back me up on this when I say that this movie had the most clever marketing trick I have ever seen. At the recent Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, he and I walked through the parking lot to discover that someone had placed videocassettes on the windshields of everyone's cars, his included. The VHS tapes were caseless, not marked or identified, and the two of us got the same sick thought. You see, the night before, he and I rented a bootleg video of the original Japanese version of Ring. Knowing how that film ended, and the fact that the characters died by watching a regular old videocassette, we grabbed the tape off the windshield and took it back to my place, saying, "Wouldn't it be weird if . . ." Well, folks, it WAS weird, because the tape contained the evil and disturbing images seen in the American remake version of The Ring, a sort of subtle, clever, and sick way of promoting the upcoming film to its target audience. William Castle would have been proud.
The plot is quite faithful to the original, down to a couple of scenes that seemed shot-for-shot. A videotape exists, featuring a cornucopia of depraved, nightmarish footage, and anyone who watches it dies (rather horribly) a week later. A journalist with a young son finds out about it and tries to unravel the mystery. She only has seven days to do so, though, because, you see, she watched the tape.
I didn't adore the original, and I didn't want to see the remake all that much, but a buddy of mine sort of dragged me, and after paying the most I have ever paid for a movie ticket (dear God, unless each seat comes with a sensual massage, how can anybody justify that kind of price??), I ended up seeing it before tyranist did. And I quite enjoyed it. Okay, enjoyed is not exactly the right word. This is a cold and disturbing film, but unpleasant as it is, it does deliver the goods. I must be getting weaker in my old age, because this flick was pretty scary to me. Not quite as bad as Signs or Fear.com., but yikes.
The cast is good, although unfamiliar (Manhunter, Braveheart, and X-Men 2's Brian Cox has a role though, and he's good). I may be wrong, but Naomi Watts may be the most attractive woman I've ever seen. And playing her son is the weirdest-looking little boy imaginable . . . not ugly per se (did you ever see the kid in The Indian in the Cupboard? I mean, good Lord!), but one with creepy eyes and an oddly-shaped head.
Written by Ehren "The Ending Never Fits With What Came Before" Kruger, this film was more satisfying, and bullshit free, than his usual work, probably because it was a remake. And much of it was lifted directly from the Japanese version. This version had a tremendous amount of backstory and detail to it that the foreign original didn't include (but it may be that this film took elements from the other two Ringu films as well, I don't know). Some of it worked, such as the interview with the child and talking to the doctor, but others like the horses stuff and some of the red herringness of Brian Cox's character didn't. Some of the extra detail eliminates a bit of the mystery of the other version. Kind of like when we found out Freddy Krueger was abused, and had a daughter, and was the bastard son of a thousand maniacs.
In this one, the kid is psychic or semi-psychic, and every once in a while, when he'd deliver a line, I could just FEEL them trying to channel Haley Joel Osment's awesome performance in The Sixth Sense. I've spoken to a couple people about the kid, and there have been varied explanations for his odd behaviour (one guy even went as far as to say that he is the reincarnation of the movie's villain). One thing I think we can all agree on is, I would never let my kid call me by my first name. NEVER.
On the positive side, the villain is quite original and evil (aren't you sick to death of ghosts who are merely lonely, or misunderstood, or trapped in their situation?) with an appropriately chilling name. Yeah, just rush out and name your next kid, Samara, why don't you? The settings were nice, with rainy vistas, an almost Japanesque Seattle, and a dreary, mist-shrouded island. Did I mention Naomi Watts? Oh, and a couple of Rick Baker's death creations in this flick rank among the most disturbing things I've seen. I debated with myself whether the movie was hurt by the PG-13 rating. Certainly it hindered the shower scene, but by the first week box-office, they may have made the right choice.
Back on the negative end, it made obnoxious use of loud sound effects and shock cuts as scares (also obnoxious in their effectiveness). Also, there was a truly useless scene midway through involving a horse. Just as useless would be to tell you that the woman on the video looked a lot like my Aunt Irma. They could have made the movie better by making it tighter, eliminating a couple dumb plot detours (the gone-crazy girl was also psychic?) and an almost-subplot or two. Oh, and the opening sequence was actually much less effective than it should have been, mostly due to Kruger's annoying "it's a joke/no, it's real/just a joke/but it's real" characters. In the Japanese version, you didn't really care what happened to the girls, but at least you didn't hate them.
I enjoyed this version more, though, than the Japanese version, and feel that it was the superior picture (possibly due to the extra story elements, and probably due to the Americanization, and definitely due to me staying awake this time around). There were two totally frightening aspects of the original, though, that this film didn't replicate. How do I say what they were without ruining anything? Hmm, well, let me say that in the original, the way the . . . television creature moved, was horribly wrong, and relied on pretty much no special effects. In this version, it's all special effects, and though it's very scary, it's not quite as wrong. The other point was the eyes of the creature in the original were truly horrible (I think I used that as the Best Scare in my review), and in this one, they didn't try to replicate that. Too bad.
Best Scare: There were plenty, but I'd peg a flashcut (a quick, unmotivated shot) of the first Ring victim's unnaturally dead body as the best one. Also, one dream sequence had several audience members shrieking (I wasn't quite there, but it was quite disturbing).
I'd Recommend It To: Brave souls. But leave your five year olds at home, please.

The tyranist's thoughts
I wanted to see this before our little trip to Fangoria and the mysterious tape on the windshield of my car, but that gimmick pretty much sealed it. I still have that tape in the Horror Film Compendium Collection. Still, Rish managed to rush out and see this one long before I got to it. I regret not having made more of an effort to see it in the theatre, but like so many shot-for-shot remakes of foreign films, it probably wasn't strictly necessary.
I have a hard time watching this kind of remake when I've seen the original, or watching the original when I've seen the remake. It has simply never made sense to me why someone felt the need to reshoot the film with different people. It's the same movie. Is it that they don't think we would appreciate a foreign version of the film? In a case like this the movies are so close that I am confused by how much I like them both and why I can't seem to like one more than the other.
For the record, I loved this movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. I would highly recommend it to anyone who asks. I feel the same way about the original as well.
That said, there were differences. I thought that the Japanese version was much more spiritual and atmospheric. The dead girl's psychic abilities were also much clearer in the Japanese version since they spent several scenes explaining her gifts where in the American version, we are left to guess at her nature. She was more evil in the American version seeming to choose to continue to do evil, but looked more evil in the Japanese version. Scene-wise, I liked the well scene in the Japanese version better. This is probably where the 'more spiritual' label comes in.
Hmm, that makes it sound like I liked the Japanese version a lot more. Maybe I did, all I know is that I can't make a clear separation between the two in my head more than to pick at a couple things.
This one is definitely worth watching, but if you've seen one version you've seen them both. Pick your version by whether or not you mind reading sub-titles I guess.