The Ring (2002)

Alright, so in view of the fact that this is third version of a familiar story that I'm covering here, I've decided to dispense with my usual format and just give it to you straight: comparing and contrasting this, the 2002 Gore Verbinski film, with Ringu, the original Japanese adaptation, and of course, the 1991 novel that started it all. I realize that some might would skip those first two analyses if they were only familiar with this version, but I'll leave that to them to figure out. While I certainly wouldn't judge you for skipping the novel, Ringu is a horror film I can easily recommend to just about everybody except those too close-minded to read subtitles, and so I find that a bit more unforgivable. And needless to say, though I may have forgotten to say so last time (oops) there will be spoilers for all three versions present throughout this analysis. And so, without further ado, let's dive right in.

To begin with, I want to discuss the more positive aspects of this adaptation when compared with its predecessors. First up, there's the by-now familiar opening scene, here expanded a bit and emphasizing the meta idea of this film signaling the end of the dominance of teen slashers in popular horror. The teenagers are depicted as kind of moronic, discussing Alex Jones-style conspiracy theories about TV's beams mind-controlling signals into your brain, and stealing mother's little helper from her medicine cabinet. You don't exactly feel unconsolable when one dies and the other goes comically insane and is institutionalized, at any rate. 

The important thing to note here is the way the scene subverts your expectations of the way this scene should play out, provided you've experienced the other two versions of the story. At the precise moment where our false heroine is expected to die after turning around and seeing... something, she instead turns around to find nothing but the spooky TV blaring static, which she consequently switches off only for it to... stay off? And the scene just continues, leaving Ringu fans feeling unmoored and unsure of what might happen next. A pit forms in your stomach, and you begin to dread the eventual outcome, seeing as you have no idea when or how exactly it will make its appearance. The construction of this scene, the little ballet the camera performs, the design and structure of how it all plays out is perfect, capturing the atmosphere of a looping nightmare quite well. So in this case, the remake gets the prize for its superior handling of an iconic scene.

Next up, we have what is probably the remake's strongest set of scenes: the obtaining of the cursed videotape and Rachel, our heroine, watching it in the cabin the teenagers rented. The cabin is a little too obvious in horror terms, and it loses much of the subtext where the cabin was part of a larger complex of vacation solutions for rich, well-to-do citizens of the modern urban sprawl, depicted as humanity trying to pave over the ghosts of the past and the existence of the supernatural. Still, the fact that the retrieval of the tape doesn't feature the busy editing and scare chords the original film used, and that they've invented this new character who, apropo enough, performs a magic trick and totally screws it up is a nice touch. Is magic real? Is the supernatural real? Are ghosts real? Who knows, but what's absolutely true is that that dude was a total fraud.

The actual composition of the haunted tape, though, is nothing short of brilliant. Nothing in the original film or book comes close. It evidences the director's experience in directing music videos and allows him to go wild, and the results make a big impression, so much so that many claim this is the single best argument for watching this film over the original, though I obviously disagree. Still, there's truth to what they're saying. But then there's its unique solution to the "How do we signal that the protagonist is now in danger?" question that haunted the original story, which settled on blatant kidnapper's text straight from the mouth of our antagonist telling the viewer that they were to die in seven days. Here, you first get a phone call, and a creepy little girl's voice whispers: "Seven days..." It's much more effective than either the book or film and is one of those little things you really miss when it isn't there. Later, there's also a cool scene of a fly coming out of the tape when viewed again, which is both neat foreshadowing and part of a subtle hint that every time the tape is viewed, the images change ever so slightly and more of the antagonist, here named Samara, is visible near the end. Needless to say, this is a big win for the remake.

Speaking of Samara, the film handles her character well, though she is far less mysterious than she used to be. Here, she's depicted as pure evil incarnate, some kind of unholy beast unleashed on the world thanks to Anna Morgan, her adoptive mother, and her desperation to become a mother. Or, as some fans allege, thanks to some kind of unnatural conception, covered up as adoption. Something to think about, at any rate. They add a neat detail to her backstory as well: thanks to her otherwordly nature and a magical healing factor, Samara managed to survive in the well for seven days before dying. So you get that she might be a little ticked off, even years later and from beyond the veil of death.

The misdirection surrounding the antagonist has always been there, but in the original, it was a shock that the antagonist wasn't happy with 'being set free' at all, the way ghost stories usually work, and instead demands that the chain of victims continue in order for her revenge to spread, hopefully wiping out the human race in the process. Here, it's inherently shocking that Samara is such a small child and yet is totally, irredeemably malicious and dangerous to everyone around her. The audience's sympathies, and those of our heroine, begin firmly in her camp, only to discover too late at the end of the film that her parents probably killed her off for good reason. Speaking of which, this story is unique in that the vengeful ghost at the center of it all has been killed off in three different ways in all three versions we're looking at: in the novel, she was raped and killed by a passing sickly man; in the Japanese film, she was killed by her father for driving her mother to suicide; and in the American film, she is killed by her mother once the latter has realized just what she has unleashed on the world, followed by her expected suicide.

Anyway, back to what I was saying: misdirection. I love the way the film fakes us out by having our lead put together a false core thematic thread of children expressing themselves in unconventional ways and being misunderstood, and believing that all Samara wants is to be loved. The film attempts to trick us further by contrasting scenes where Samara's behavior is quite eyebrow-raising with scenes that show her inhumane living conditions, emphasizing her sympathetic qualities and downplaying her clear psychopathy. This makes it easier to identify with our lead, who makes some very, in hindsight, poor decisions throughout the film. Ironically, if Rachel had tried discussing the situation with her son much earlier in the film, instead of projecting a bunch of bullshit onto a monstrous child and attempting to play mother to some unholy evil, maybe none of this would have happened. Speaking of which, the scene where Aidan reveals Samara's true nature to Rachel by freaking the fuck out when she tells him that she 'helped her' is quite hair-raising, and serves as the best way to deliver the third act twist out of any of the adaptations.

Overall, the remake doesn't reinvent the story by any means, but there are some cool additions to the tale, like the scene of Rachel telling off her boss when he tries to fire her and totally getting away with it, which answers the question of how a reporter can lay out of her job for a week and face no repercussions. Then there's that awesome dream sequence, where she pulls a foreign object wrapped in long black hair from her throat and water begins to pour from the phone when she answers it. It's great stuff. It also adds back in at least one little touch from the novel, where Rachel actually goes outside and reflects on the urban sprawl surrounding her while her boyfriend, Noah, watches the tape for himself., but that's an incredibly minor detail.

There's also a sense that the longer runtime gives the screenwriters more space to let the investigative aspect of the story breathe a little, though towards the end it gets a little scattered (who left those clues in the barn?) It's also nice that Rachel does most of the legwork herself here, as Noah, the replacement for Ryuji, is kind of clueless and starts the story completely disbelieving Rachel and remaining thoroughly unconvinced until the truth practically bowls him over. And as I bring this first section of praise to a close, let's reflect once more on everybody's favorite talking point when it comes to the remake: the visuals. While they aren't necessarily a total upgrade over the original, there is a lot more visual imagination on display here, and the score is especially effective thanks to it being a Hans Zimmer joint. 

In turns of changes that I'm more ambivalent about, there's the backstory of the Morgans, which is quite different from the backstory in the original film, and at this point, totally removed from the source material. They run a ranch and raise horses together, and Anna Morgan really wanted a daughter, so they adopted a bad seed while vacationing in some third-world country. But over the next few years, all of their horses began to commit suicide, presumably leading to Anna Morgan's suicide. Not quite the awesome implication of Sadako being the product of sex between woman and fish god, but it's not bad; certainly less bizarre than the novel. But then, what's up with the scene where Richard Morgan punches our lead, a petite young woman, square in the face, and then backs off completely, babbling about Samara before offing himself on the spot. Why have him assault her only to then kill himself? That's a small thing but more than a little ill-conceived.

Speaking of ill-conceived, we're on to the negatives, and by god, are there lots. For starters, and I know this seems like a small thing, but I just hate that damn blue-green filter that hangs over everything! It's claimed that this was an attempt to emulate the look of old VHS tapes but I have never heard of such a thing. White balance has been a thing since far before the day of camcorders and VCR's, and that would be the only thing that would make your tapes look this sickening. 

Some people might consider that a nitpick, and I suppose I will concede it can't exactly ruin the film's strong visuals. But then, it gets more serious: rather than getting to know our heroine through her decisive actions in investigating the curse, we get these boilerplate Hollywood scenes in the first act where everything stops so that we can have the character and their relationship to one another spoonfed to us as blatantly as possible. It's subtle, but noticeable when viewed back-to-back with the Japanese adaptation.

Okay, not serious enough for you? How about this: the oft-discussed "I saw her face." jumpscare that comes early in the film, in a scene where its placement is quite startling. Only thing is, I don't think it holds up very well. It's placed in a sad, quiet scene and comes so early in the film and out of nowhere to boot, and that's saying nothing of the awful CGI facial mutilation that I remember hating as a teenager and I still hate it. Both times we see it, it looks awful. Even subtle CGI could have made the faces look uncanny in a good way, but the way they've done up here, they just look absurd. Compare this scene to the similar one in the original film where Reiko goes to explore her niece's room and turns around to find her sister standing there, who proceeds to open the closet and... JUMPSCARE! Now that's effective. And this? This really isn't. Thank god they know to cut away very quickly whenever they show them.

I'll do you one better: how about the scene where Rachel goes to question the girl who was hanging with Katy, Rachel's niece, at the time of her death, and she's gone comically nuts and when approached, seems to be either in the thrall of or possessed by Samara, proceeding to inform Rachel how many days she has left and taunting her. How does that work? I guess Samara is supposed to be able to break people's minds by proximity according to her backstory, but this girl's mind isn't broken, she's more under her thrall, and I found it just a tad silly and overwrought that she magically knows all this information about a girl she's never met. 

Not to mention, the worst sin of all: while explaining how the cursed tape and the way it works defies logic, Noah is interrupted by Rachel with what amounts to "In English, please." which I found more than a little cringy. Rachel isn't a moron, and everything he said made perfect sense, so it comes across as more than a little cliche in this context. 

I also feel that the ticking clock element that was a huge part of the original story's identity and that of its original Japanese film adaptation as well is strangely missing here, and for what reason that is, I'm not exactly sure. Perhaps it's the way that an entire week passes in what feels like a thirty-minute chunk, only for the final day to last nearly as long all by itself. Or maybe it has something to do with the added length, but in either case: it's lacking in comparison to previous attempts. And honestly, that's a bummer. Thrills have long been part of this story's identity, and so it ought to be done greater justice than this.

But perhaps the most surprising blunder here is the way the scene at the old well is handled. First off, instead of going outside and tearing away the lattice surrounding the house, thus gaining access to the cavity containing the well like in both previous incarnations of the story, Noah hilariously decides to grab an axe and start tunneling right through the fucking floor. And in case you were wondering, no, they didn't change the layout of the house and the pocket where the well is located, so it's clear once they fall through the living room floor that they could have torn away the lattice exactly like in the books instead of stupidly carving a path through right through the floor. 

But then it gets far worse: you see, instead of the scene proceeding like in both the previous versions of the story, where our protagonists are racing against the clock to locate Sadako's corpse and free her from her dark, damp prison, the filmmakers in this case decided the scene would be superior if all of that was stripped out and Rachel were instead just violently knocked into the well by a falling TV set being psychically controlled by Samara. Remember in the originals how the well scene was something of the centerpiece moment, where the tension officially begins to boil over, and the anticipation of getting into that nasty scumwater to dig around for a corpse makes it all somewhat hard to bear? Well, that would take too long apparently, despite the fact that this film is nearly half an hour longer than Ringu. So instead we get CGI swarms of bees and slapstick violence brought to life with expensive animation that calls to mind similar moments of computer-generated cartoon violence that you might see in, say, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.

Okay, from the same scene, here's another serious CG-related nitpick: remember that awesomely icky scene in the original film where Sadako's hair and skin falls off of her face when Reiko strokes it, leaving behind a clean skull and eye sockets that ooze green goo? It's disgusting and I loved it. Best of all, it was all done practically. Here, the same exact thing is done, only with effects straight out of a live-action Disney film from the same era that look just awful. So in general, this whole chunk of the film is a major fuck-up in my opinion.

As an introduction to the climactic finale, let me just say that, while not what I would have done, I think it's fine that they show Samara's face and have her speak in flashbacks and overall give her more personality and presence in the film. The only thing is, as mentioned before: it makes her far less mysterious and... well, ghostly. Then they go ahead one step further during the climax and show her rotted corpse face, and she looks like Quan'chi from Mortal Kombat, and no amount of flashy editing can disguise that. It was a bad idea when Ringu 2 did it and it's a bad idea here as well.

And now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the climax. Now, I remembered this scene being pretty great, and I figured, after watching the Japanese original, that this version would easily trump it. Only, that really isn't the case. Despite all that extra Hollywood money being thrown at it, the effects depicting Samara crawling out of the TV don't look any better really, but then she scrambles out while the camera spins around her, epic music blasting at full volume, and we cut to Rachel speeding towards the apartment in her car, and it all becomes too noisy and frenetic. Samara's fingernails are mutilated here, but you'd never noticed given all that's happening at once when she's onscreen. Oh, and she's covered in faux television static that further obscures Rick Baker's makeup effects so much as to render them a total waste of his considerable talents. They also claim to have filmed her scenes in reverse as in the original, but I don't know if I even believe that. If it's true, I guess I blame that on the same thing. This is an action film climax, not a horror film climax. If you want that, go rewatch the original Ringu.

So, which version stands as superior? Honestly, it's hard to say. There are things about all three versions that I like, too much for me not to recommend them all in some fashion. I find myself leaning towards the 1998 Japanese film, but whenever I rewatch one, I end up watching the other shortly. And even if I still prefer the original, this is surely one of the best J-horror remakes, of which there would be many flooding the market following this film's success.