Okay, I appreciate that The Ring has been reviewed to death over the past few years. However, the first 2 films I watched this year for Horrorthon were an abomination and I needed something to quickly raise my horror spirits and remind me why I do this crazy contest. I also wanted to show this to a friend who never saw it before. The Ring, as some of you might know, is my favorite horror film of all time, or my second favorite after Halloween, oh I just don’t know anymore. Anyway, I’m not going to waste one second describing the plot. If you haven’t seen The Ring you really have no business coming to this Blog, right? So here are 10 things that make The Ring my favorite (or second favorite, oh I just don’t know!).
1. Samara. A horror icon is born. How often does that happen? We get Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Invisible Man in the 30s, the Wolf Man in the 40s, The Creature From the Black Lagoon in the 50s,Norman Bates in the 60s, Michael Myers, Leatherface, and The Tall Man in the 70s, Jason, Freddy, and Pinhead in the 80s, no one in the 90s, and now Samara, perhaps the freakiest one of all.
2. No annoying teenagers. Aside from the opening, which I’ve always interpreted as homage to the “typical” teen movie, we get an older cast here.
3. No thunderous rock music that will be outdated before the film comes out on DVD. The Ring sports an eerie soundtrack similar to Psycho.
4. Dread. Everything about this film is bleak. It’s always raining and the colors are gray and dreary.
5. No annoying kids. Okay, Aiden is a little weird but he never annoyed me like almost every other kid in the history of cinema.
6. Beautiful cinematography. The shot of the sunlight reflecting off the red tree is gorgeous.
7. Wells are made creepy. I will never be able to look at a well again without feeling uneasy
8. No comedic relief. The Ring is intense throughout
9. Less is more. Much of The Ring relies more on our imagination than obvious blood and gore shots. This film is only PG-13 yet it is scarier than all of its R-rated cousins.
10. That damn ending. You think its over and then POW! You get sucker-punched with an instantly iconic moment. To say I had goose bumps when I first saw The Ring would be an understatement of my sympathetic arousal.
6 comments:
Other great Ring stuff:
1) The lighthouse. Very complicated special effects to create that fictional lighthouse, just for the atmosphere. The beginning of Act III, when her car moves onto the island...
2) Becca's house at the beginning: the most dimly-lit residence in the history of North American architecture. I can't believe Verbinski's genius at bleeding all the light out of that house; it's soaked in darkness from the beginning.
3) The video itself. Made by the same firm that did the "Spy vs. Spy" Mountain Dew ads. Incredible; Salvador Dali/Bunel-esque.
4) All those old file folders and rotted scrapbooks and grimy boxes of videotapes and other great shabby clues.
5) That little blip of unreality that crosses the reflection outside the bedroom.
6) The barn. (With more lighthouse effects.)
7) All the photographs with the distorted faces.
8) What's-his-name interrupting the spell with his fingers on the bodega video monitor.
9) "How did you make the pictures, Samara?"
10) That trancendental moment when she waits outside on her balcony while the guy watches the tape...and she sees all those other people watching television too.
God yes those are all great moments! How could I foget to mention the tape? When Anna Morgan first turned to "look" at us my heart stopped! Also the horse scene was amazing as well as when Watts plucks the fly off the screen and her nose begins to bleed.
Yes! To all of that stuff. I'd add to the "less is more" point that less is also sometimes less*, and Verbinski and co. do an unbelievable job of choosing exactly how much to show us.
*Blair Witch would be an example of this, for me.
i also like the way jpx watched two lame movies and then chose to write this one first just to cleanse his pallette.
i worry that this much horror watching is going to make me forget what an actually good horror movie is.
it's not going to stop me though.
I pass a house on my way to work that's in the backroads of Newport, it has what I assume was a well at some point - I think of "The Ring" EVERY time I look at that thing. It totally creeps me out.
Great list and additional list from Jordan!
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