JOIN USRings
English (A)¬¬
Cast: Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki
Director: F Javier Gutiérrez
Rings had caught everyone’s attention a couple of months ago when news spread that the third installment in the popular The Ring series was coming up.
It again caught everyone’s attention last week when it released in theatres in the UK and the US, only to be welcomed by a notorious response from critics in both countries. It has now come to be recognised as the disappointing young brat in the The Ring family.
The main thread of the movie is overwhelmingly familiar. It tells the story of a cursed video that creepily makes its way through the world, killing anyone who watches it in seven days, unless that person manages to make someone else watch it, in which case the curse moves on to the new person. The image of the girl from the video, with her hair falling all over her face, dressed in a dripping white gown, crawling out of a TV screen is one of the most copied and parodied ones in popular culture, equalled perhaps only by Star Wars and Dracula. Rings is a disappointment to many because it shrugs off this heritage that it is arguably expected to shoulder.
Another point that the movie fails at is in its claim to be a horror movie. There are far fewer sightings of the ghost than one might expect, and the times when the ghost does decide to grace us with its presence, it is not scary enough.
There is nothing more disappointing than watching a scary ghost movie without a scary ghost — the feeling is something akin to eating warm ice cream.
There is some redemption, however, if you watch it without many expectations. In that case, it is a moderately entertaining thriller with an occasional spook. Some consolation is to be derived from the fact that we are being given the origin story of Samara, the ghost in the video. However, even that could have benefitted from better writing.