Cady's Take:

Newspaper reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) learns about an infamous tape while attending her niece Katie’s funeral. We learn that Katie and her friends died after they watched a videotape while spending a weekend at a cabin in the woods. The tape shows images that are disturbing, violent, and at the end of watching it, the phone rings and a female voice tells you that you have just seven days left to live.

Rachel takes a trip to the cabin in question and there she discovers the videotape. And of course, she watches it and then proceeds to show her ex-boyfriend the tape also. Together the ex- Noah (Martin Henderson) and Rachel investigate further. The stakes are raised when Rachel and Noah’s quietly precocious son Aidan (David Dorfman of "Bounce") becomes 'infected' by the video.

The movie has quite a few moments of genuine spine-tingling thrills but this movie didn’t live up to the hype surrounding it. It doesn't come close to any of my favorite horror movies by far (Shining, Halloween, Poltergeist), but for a late Saturday night for those who relish in horror movies making them feel uneasy long after the tape has ended and you lay in bed trying to sleep, this is a decent video pick.

The plot line wasn't really defined in where it wanted to take the audience and it wasn't as ruthless as I would have liked. The best thing that this film has going for it is that it is fast moving and busy.

The Ring reminded me of Stir Of Echoes-1999 with Kevin Bacon, but definitely not as good. If you are looking for a film that scares, makes you leap out of your seat, and gives you nightmares…rent Sam Raimi’s “The Gift”- 2000 instead of “The Ring”.

What a nightmare. I suppose for some horror movies that could be considered a compliment, but for the purposes of this review it certainly is NOT. I thought “The Ring” was the least scary, the least imaginative, and the least satisfactory thriller I have seen in a very long time. This is a one-note movie that barely achieves the one note.

Rachel (Naomi Watts) is a reporter who comes across a video that, when viewed, results in a mysterious phone call that informs the watcher he/she is going to die in seven days – and then the watcher dies in seven days. Rachel’s niece is killed by the video, at which point Rachel watches it, and then proceeds to show the father of her child the tape. Why, I am still not sure. Her son gets hold of the tape and he, too watches it (I personally would take a few measures to hide murderous videos from my child, but that’s just me I suppose.) Rachel goes on a seven-day investigative-reporter-style hunt for the origins and the “cure” for death by videotape. This leads her to a mysterious lighthouse, and a mysterious, cantankerous old man Richard Morgan (played by the always wonderful Brian Cox). This movie twists and turns and twists back again, only to lead us to the worst explanation ever concocted for a horror movie. “The Ring” not only cheats us out of a satisfactory explanation, but it just will not quit explaining! Just when you think the movie is over and the evil has been avenged, instead of rolling credits we get another situation, and another explanation. It is difficult to express my frustration over this movie without giving away crucial plot points, but suffice it to say the source of the “evil” makes the unusual circumstances of the deaths, the phone calls, and just about everything else about “The Ring” seem simply ludicrous. In fact, “the ring” doesn’t even end up being anything!

One of the central reasons “The Ring” is such an awful movie, is that we do not particularly like the main characters. Rachel’s son Aidan (played by the absolutely wonderful David Dorfman) is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, mostly because his mom is never there. We are brought almost two-thirds of the way through the movie before we are informed that Noah (Henderson) is Aidan’s father! There is a painful and unnecessary scene where Noah explains to Aidan that he just does not think he would make a good father, perhaps because his own was lacking. I wanted to yell – “He’s seven years old! Just buy him an ice cream and shut up!”

Almost all horror movies rely on a certain degree of implausibility, but the good ones manage to either explain enough to allow us to overlook the seemingly absurd (see “Signs”) or they provide us with too much fun and frivolity for us to care (see “House”).
Now, I am not saying there were no moments of suspense in “The Ring” – there certainly were. Unfortunately the payoff was entirely disappointing, and thus a waste of the anticipation I had built up with such hope.