"The Ring" is a 2002 Hollywood remake of a 1998 Japanese horror film. Not very much is changed from the original, but even if you didn't know it was a remake, it's still a bit lackluster.
We find out in the first few minutes that the movie is about a VHS tape that kills. Too bad they hadn't switched to DVD yet. Apparently it's an urban legend that if you watch whatever is on the tape, you die in exactly seven days. Very quickly we learn that this is a legitimate threat, as the teenager who watched it last weekend dies after some weird things happen with the television.
Rachel Keller, a journalist, agrees to investigate her niece's strange death, and we learn a bit about her and what has to be the most eloquent elementary-schooler in Seattle. She starts to look at the circumstances surrounding her niece's and her friend's deaths, and finds that they did in fact all die exactly seven days after they watched the tape. She also finds out that they watched it at a place called Shelter Mountain Inn, where she finds the infamous tape nestled happily among the left-behind tapes that occupy the shelf.
For some reason, God knows why, Rachel decides she needs to watch the tape that seems to have caused at least four people's deaths. Not only that, but she deliberately shows it to her ex-boyfriend after she has found more evidence that the legend is true, and to top it all off, leaves it out so her son gets ahold of it and pops it in the VHS player for late-night entertainment.
Luckily, her ex just happens to be a video analyst, and Rachel finds an image of a lighthouse that leads her from clue to clue, eventually finding out that the tape has something to do with a Moesko Island and the Morgan family that once bred horses on it. She visits the remaining Morgan, the father, who doesn't have too much of a role to play. Rachel does find a tape from the mental institution where Samara was held, but it doesn't help her much either. She then remembers something her son told her, because for some unknown reason Samara talks to him. Her son said that Samara didn't like sleeping in the barn since the horses kept her up, and lo and behold, turns out Samara slept in the barn when she lived with the Morgans. They find a drawing of a tree burnt into the wall, and they end up back where they started.
The tree picture leads the gang back to Cabin 12 at Shelter Mountain Inn, they find a damp spot in the floor and without regards to private property, chop through it. Underneath the floor is the well from the videotape. It's getting late in the seventh day, and Rachel's time is running short. Samara's telekinetic powers pull nails out of the floorboards and the television smashes into Rachel's head, sending her into the well. Miraculously, she isn't knocked out by the force of the television and doesn't seem to hit the walls of the well at all on the way down. She has a vision that reveals it was Samara's mother that killed her, and Rachel finds the girl's body there in the well.
Samara is given a burial, but somehow Rachel's kid knows the curse isn't broken. Samara can now crawl out of televisions, and she does, killing Rachel's ex. Rachel finds him and comes to the realization that because she copied the tape earlier in the film and showed it to him, she's been safe the entire time. Of course that raises the question of why she fell into the well, but you're not supposed to think about that.
The sound design was the best part about "The Ring". The background noise is used to create a lot of tension and I felt like it worked very well. There were some pretty good shots mixed in too, and there were a few places where I glanced around the room to make sure I really was alone. However, there were so many plot holes it ruined some of the atmosphere they were trying to build up.
The Ring wasn't terrible by any means, but it wasn't amazing either. I'd give it a six or seven out of ten.
