Overview
Before you die, you see the Ring.
Rachel Keller is a journalist investigating a videotape that may have killed four teenagers. There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. Rachel tracks down the video… and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery of the Ring so she can save herself and her son.
Review
Another film lodged securely in my top-25 horror movies of all time. Anytime there is a subconscious fear that starts in a fictional movie and gnaws away at you after leaving the theater or viewing, it’s horror done well. The Ring attempts to give viewers that campy chill that you just might be part of the horror at hand. Not many movies can pull this type of thing off, but The Ring does so quite effectively.
In my later viewings, the euphoria of fear was stifled, of course, but, even then, you almost mark the calendar and hope nothing bad happens to you within 7 days. Or be a poser/weenie, and not watch all of the videotape footage within the film. That footage heightens the horror in the movie, so no true horror fan (in their right mind) would forego the creepy nightmare videotape experience for the off-chance of possible death. Come on! So, in reality, if there was any merit to a Samara-imprinted tape existing outside of fiction, a lot of us would be rather fucked.
Not only is The Ring a good movie, that niggling little what-if remains, even in subsequent viewings. What if on your seventh viewing, the phone did ring? I’m sure many have, but I don’t personally know anyone who has officially been on record for watching it a seventh time. No one alive, that is.
Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)
