The opening scene of The Ring is pure standard horror formula, as two teenaged girls home alone share a scary story, torment each other with a series of teasing false alarms, and then face the terrible threat that becomes the focus of the rest of the film. It’s urban legend material, as the two talk about a videotape that supposedly dooms its viewers to a certain death – seven days after seeing it.
Enter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), neglectful mom, intrepid Seattle newspaper reporter, and aunt of the first victim. Intrigued by the story of the videotape that’s passing among her niece’s friends, and disturbed by the additional deaths of her niece's three friends - who had watched the video at the same time - Rachel sets to work investigating. She finds the video remarkably easily, sits down to watch it, and then is horrified to learn that the story seems to be true. Unfortunately, this realization comes after she has allowed her ex (Martin Henderson) to also see the movie (which, as he points out, looks very much like your average film school art film). So the two set out to figure out what it’s all about before it’s too late.
The Ring has a pretty straightforward mystery/ horror movie premise, and director Gore Verbinski (The Mexican, Mouse Hunt) does a fine job of balancing the mystery – which is pieced together one clue at a time like a treasure hunt – with the horror – which is delivered through a handful of shocks and an equal serving of chilling moments. This is an exceedingly well-made film, with a crisp pace and a stylish look, with loads of perplexing symbolism only gradually exposed as meaningful. Verbinski’s talent for distinctive images, presumably gained during his extensive television advertisement directorial experience, is put to good use here. He uses close-ups frequently (thankfully, Watts is very nice to look at – otherwise this might become quite tiresome), and has great fun with the symbolic images – of horses, flies, ladders and the ring.
In fact, while the images appearing on the killer videotape seem incomprehensible early on, they ultimately prove surprisingly straightforward – horse means horse, ladder means ladder, and so on. But the route from confusion to clarity is a bumpy and thrilling one. There’s no chance to relax, as the moments without high tension are filled with plenty to keep your mind occupied figuring out what’s what in the storyline.
Watts (Mulholland Drive) shows herself to be a capable leading player here. She is beautiful, charismatic and comes across as a strong, likeable woman. She effectively conveys her character’s growing terror as the days before her promised death count down. Never shrill or helpless, Rachel is a most appealing horror movie hero. The New Zealand-born Henderson is solid, and little David Dorfman is appropriately spooky as Rachel’s prescient son.
Set in and around a rainy Seattle (I sure wish they wouldn’t film rainy day scenes in full sunlight – it looks as bogus today as it did when moviemakers did it in the 1950s and ‘60s), this is a horror movie, but not one that depends on loads of blood and gore; in fact, there’s very little of it on display here. However, there’s plenty of tense moments and healthy servings of desperation from start to finish.
Chances are, you’ll be pretty satisfied with the film as it appears to be winding down with an incongruously happy ending, but fear not – there’s a twist or two toward the end that save The Ring from ending badly and ensure its place among the more creepy, spooky and tense films of 2002.
