This copy of a Japanese horror movie called Ring which needed to be translated into English, so they re-filmed the whole thing, so people didn’t have to go reading them subtitle things. Well in this situation they did a very good job. The Japanese movie was made in 1998 and this version was released in 2002 and starred Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Jane Alexander & Brian Cox. I will give you a covering plot of this one as the set up is really all you need before I hit you with spoilers galore no doubt. It used a budget of $48m to produce and then went on to gross $249.4m which is very tidy. This was well received by critics at the time and we went to the cinema to see it and I have to say that night was when I had had the spookiest feeling in a cinema ever. So this must have been a great movie huh, well you are going to have to wait for the usual third section for two anecdotes I have of that evening, one of which still makes me laugh to this day. Before giving you an overview of the plot I have to come clean and say that I have let the side down with the Tri-Critic Sync Challenge as the other two actually agree on the same score but I gave this 5 points more making this joint second in the search for the smallest score spread. IMDb giving 7.1/10 equalling the 71% from Rotten Tomatoes. I guess I just liked it more than those guys then.
I won’t need to give you a full blow by blow of this movie as the concept of the movie will be enough to hopefully whet your appetite for this film. Back before the invention of DVD’s there was this concept of video’s and if you wanted to watch a movie at home you had to watch it on video. A cassette none the less! It begins with two girls are at home and one explains a phenomenon of a video that is going around that once you watch it you have seven days left to live. One girl explains that she and some friends watch that exact movie a week ago and she seems fine. Until she dies and the girl, she was with is so traumatised that she will never speak again. Enter the main character the sister of the dead girl’s mother who asks her as a journalist to investigate the death. Basically, that is the deal here, there is a video knocking about that if you watch it then within seven days you are dead. And normally dead in a mysterious way as well. So, the journalist in her kicks in and she goes to the cabin they rented and finds the mysterious tape she watches the tape and as it finishes the phone rings. She picks up the receiver and the voice at the other end says just two words and the line cuts off. The two words are ‘seven days’.
That is enough really to get you going this is literally a movie about a video tape that when you watch it you are cursed to die within the next seven days. The way you are killed is bloody spooky and the way extent that this journalist goes to in an attempt to lift the curse within seven days is amazing. Sharing it with her ex-boyfriend and father of her son was probably not the best of idea’s but at least her young son won’t get to watch it. This is a creepy spooky movie with a scary as shit on a stick ghost that continues the curse and cannot be stopped which may explain the second and third movies (save your time and not bother with those) this is probably the only one to see and with the tape theme it is probably a bit dated as well now. I watched this in the cinema when release and I promised you a couple of stories about this. Well me and my now wife went to see this with a few friends of hers one of which is a little old Irish lady. Who at the end of the movie gave it a summary that I cannot compete with here she said “I liked that fill-um because it was very psychiatric!” which had us all rolling around the car on the way home and one quote that has stuck with us. I also told you that I have never been so spooked and scared in a cinema the same as I was that night. Well it had little to do with the movie really as it is a spooky and scary film with jump scares a plenty and a ghost that could haunt your dreams for months and there is also eerie movie and effects. The movie finishes and everyone filters out not watching the credits and our little Irish friend points out that she’s left her purse under the seat, so I go back to retrieve it. Walking back into an empty cinema in the half light of a screen with noises and bangs soundtrack of a movie still trying to spook you was the most scared I’ve been. It was eerie and spooky and very unnerving just walking back and then finding our seats and then crawling around under them in the vain hope of finding this purse. That was scarier than the movie itself. Giving up and walking back to apologies for not finding it and preparing for long conversations and sharing of contact details with managers to retrieve the purse overnight from the cleaners I was told no it was here in my bag all along. Suffice to say that this was the last cinema trip I had with this lovely lady.
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