The Vast of Night (2019): Story Analysis
June 7, 2020We Are Excited to Release a New Episode For The First Time in Two Years
August 20, 2020The Ring (2002) Film Review
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What is The Ring (2002) Movie About?
You Will Die in Seven Days
The Ring (2002) was part of a wave of American fascination with Japanese horror storytelling and remaking successful Japanese hits to an Americanized audience. I recall when this came into theaters. I was still pretty young to be watching horror films like that as my family was fairly religious and veering away from entertainment that promoted dark feelings or actual evil tended to put my mother off.
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But I remember everyone’s reaction after. There was a big brother to one of my friends. He’d seen the film and had told me he actually wished he hadn’t. That he’d avoided all TVs or thoroughly locked his door at night and that after the week mark he’ll feel better, even though he knew it was all make-believe. That struck me. This guy played it tough all the time, teased me and his kid sister endlessly. But something about this story really spooked him. He was disturbed by it.
He asked me if I wanted him to tell him the whole movie. I think a part of him even wanted to share it so that he didn’t have to bear this cursed feeling alone. But I told him. “No. Don’t tell me.” I could tell he desperately wanted too, but ultimately left me alone. It wasn’t until years later when I was a freshman in college and exercised my right to an independent Netflix account all my own, (Pre-streaming service, this was all DVD’s in the mail only.) That I requested The Ring (2002) DVD to come to my mailbox.
Style of Film
As previously stated this film STARTED a majoring trend of remaking Japanese films. I talk about some of this in my review for Pulse (2001) where it lists out all the Japanese films that transitioned over into American remakes. However, The Ring (2002) was the first to make it BIG. The largest thing that ages this film is the color grading that was popular for the era, and I would argue this cinematic style was trended by The Matrix (1999). With drastic color grading choices such as a cold, blue/green atmosphere. People found it otherworldly. Hey, if you’re trying to make someone feel unsettled in a subtle way. Color grading is an effective way to get you there, as psychologically there have been studies about how we react to certain colors in marketing. So why not apply that to film? Unfortunately the early 2000s really weren’t subtle on color grading. In fact it didn’t really age well. You can tell when watching anything from that era just by the cinematography alone. Saw (2004), Skeleton Key (2005), House of Wax (2005), What Lies Beneath (2000)… all of them are guilty of heavy and drastic color grading overtones that lean into green/blue. Its meant to communicate isolation. In fact, many of the 2000’s television and film are distinct in the method of HEAVY color grading Color Grading techniques.
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The television show Veronica Mars (2004) pops reds and blows out the lighting during scenes of teenagers interacting with fun or show warmth. However when Veronica (the mystery-solving teenager that is 10x more badass than Nancy Drew ever was.) goes to interrogate or when a “bad” flash-back memory is shown, the color grade shifts to a HEAVY overcast blue/green.
The Ring (2002) Heads of Production
The Ring (2002) had a decently high budget of $48 Million (closer to $68 Mil with inflation). That’s an INSANE budget for a horror film. If you’ll remember in my blog entry about comparing all the budgets for Blumhouse Productions, you’ll see that the biggest budget they’ve given anything in the last 20 years is 20 million. And that was for Us (2019), the follow-up horror film for director Jordan Peele after releasing the National hit Get Out (2017). They were expecting Us (2019) to be a box office draw and it still had a third of the budget that The Ring (2002) was given.
One of the large contributing factors behind this is likely what studio expectation on budget spending was in 2002 was shaken after Paranormal Activity (2005) dropped. This was an indie horror film that was on the painfully small budget of $15,000 total. BAM!!! That shook every expectation of what it took to make a horror film successful. You don’t need to spend that much money really, and the margins AKA “risk” is so much lower.
Director and Director of Photography
There’s no denying there are sequences within The Ring (2002) that still feel unsettling. However, after being out for 20 years, time makes it easy to parody, point, laugh and remind ourselves it’s not real or that scary. But even so, I’ve found myself reticent to rewatch it for this blog. I know how it ends, I know the dated material. So why did I care so much?
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The fact is, that damn VHS video sequence still makes me squirm. It’s really the stuff of nightmares and I cannot put my finger on why it agitates me. I watched it in its entirety already for over a decade ago and no dripping TV ghosts have come to claim me yet. (I used to joke thinking, “ha! Sucker, try and climb outta that little screen.” back when I was poor and could only watch video’s on my laptop in college. Nowadays the size of TV I have it’d practically be the size of a full door for her… so if I believed in it i’d be basically screwed.)
I started to look into the talent behind the camera as that is where the film has affected me most over the years. The Ring (2002) had a juggernaut of talent on its course. Would be A-lister Naomi Watts became a household name after this film. Director Gore Verbinski along with DP Bojan Bazelli would go on to be major players in Hollywood behind the camera.
Director Gore Verbinski. You’d know him from directing Pirates of the Caribbean (2006), Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), or Rango (2011). He had a large national success with The Mexican (2001) just the year before doing The Ring (2002) and was looking for a new project. In fact, The Ring (2002) began production even before they had an ending to the film. They brought on Scott Frank to help finish it (his writing credits include Minority Report (2002), Marley & Me (2008), and The Interpreter (2005).
Even lesser-known Bojan Bazelli was the DP (director of photography). To help anyone reading this as to why I’d specifically point out this guy, the DP is the right-hand man of a director who makes suggestions on lighting, production design, art department leaders, and works with selecting filming equipment, types of effects and selects locations for shooting. The visual voice of the film is from the DP.
I challenge you to listen to the music the next time you turn on this flick. Because you may be surprised to know that Hans Zimmer wrote the soundtrack. You heard me right. The guy who brought music personality to The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005-2012), Interstellar (2014), Pirates of the Caribbean (2005), Dunkirk (2017), Inception (2010). I mean… in respect of composers… the man is a wizard who makes the film with emotional body. I imagine you likely could pick 3 of out of the film credits I just gave you and hum a few bars of his music.
So what does a wizard-like that do for a horror film? He shows the amazing breadth of talent of sticking to strings, to heighten suspense, or demonstrate loneliness. But when it comes to danger, he takes away these comforting familiar instruments and uses hints of tin-sounding drums (possibly garbage cans), he disrupts our expectations of instruments and starts using something unnatural to take away our comfort. Try listening to the soundtrack when you have a minute.
Film Structure for The Ring (2002) (Save the Cat Beat Sheet)
Opening Image: Two teenage girls are sitting at home alone watching TV.
Theme: Technology mixed with isolation creates social pain.
Set-Up: The friend visiting the teenager begins to tell her about the urban legend of a cursed VHS tape that looks like someone’s nightmare. When It’s done playing your phone rings and a voice on the other end tells you, you will die in 7 days.
Catalyst: The teen is dead. Her Aunt, an investigative journalist, speaks to her son. He tells her that he spoke to the girl before her death and she knew she was going to die.
Debate: What is on the VHS and where is it from?
Break Into Act II: The main character backtracks her nieces last week alive and follows it to the cabin where the tape was rumored to have last been. She locates the tape, watches it, and is given a phone call… that she will die in 7 days.
B Story: The investigative journalist has a tumultuous personal life with her sone not dealing with death well, and her ex husband still being attached to her.
Fun and Games: We see a published set of photos of the teen before and after she’s watched the VHS. After she’s watched it her face is obscured/blurred. The boy she was dating from another school died at the exact same moment as the teenager. We visit the cabin in the woods where they went for the weekend when they watched the VHS.
Midpoint: The investigative journalist finds the tape and watches it herself.
Bad Guys Close In: The week ticks away with some clues as to the origins of the visuals in the video.
All is Lost: Her Son watches the tape
Dark Night Of the Soul: They enter the cabin and the main character is physically pushed into the well to confront Samara’s corpse.
Break into Act III: The main character tells her son that she did her best to help the little girl and it’s over now. Her son alarmingly says, “no you’re not supposed to help her!”
Finale: The boyfriend of the main character is confronted by the Samaras ghost who climbs through the TV and attacks him.
Final Image: The main character solves that in order to avoid being hunted by the ghost you need to make a copy of the film and then show it someone else. The ending is that of anonymously dropping off the video within a “blockbuster” rental store swarming with people who may just pick up the video.
Differences between Ringu (1998) and the Ring (2002)
While many of the scenes are on a high level the same. Even the DP took some inpiration from the original film. When the first TV turns on by itself before the teen is killed in the intro scene, the TV screen is obscured through some textured glass.
However, in script play, I did notice some interesting key differences between the two. Some pieces of lore that were given more forefront attention, whereas in the Americanized version I’d basically missed this whole time but they do mention it.
How the video first came into actual being enough to prompt the initial conversation with the opening scene. The teenagers who rented the cabin also rented out a VHS from the main office with the intention of recording a football game they didn’t want to miss. The office manager even says to Naomi Watts that “…reception around here gets spotty…” It’s possible that Samara’s spirit from the well was attempting to project onto the nearby televisions and was even small in success enough to generate the rumor of if you “watch this video you’ll die in 7 days.” It wasn’t until the actual VHS recording occurred that it provided a new medium in which to relay her message outward and repeat her deadly message throughout the world.
Something I rather prefer RINGU (1999) over The Ring (2002) is part of Samara’s origin story. In Ringu (1999), Samara wasn’t the center of attention. Her mother in fact was being scientifically studied by the government for her ESP abilities. And once during a demonstration from her mother to show her capabilities, The audience becomes unruly and begin to threaten her. “Samara” (for the sake of less confusion i’m going to refer to the representative character for both films with this same name even though it is different in Ringu.)…
“Samara” then steps out from the wings of the stage where her mother is and with VERY little effort basically force chokes the heckler man in the audience to death. It then becomes abundantly clear, if they thought mama was a threat, a little child who hasn’t developed social skills of full right and wrong who can do this x10 times stronger… is a problem. The mother does die, and the little girl is killed by the father after going mad and feeling like he’s stepping on eggshells of what is essential “The Bad Seed” but with supernatural powers.
In the Americanized version… well if I’m honest to go on a small tangent… some horror elements still haven’t quite got past the idea of “mentally insane” health isn’t quite off the reservation for poking at. It’s gaining more traction now in widespread conversations as we begin to look toward a renovation of mindsets here in 2020 along with a large host of another hot button topic that no longer should be taken for granted, or warped for entertainment’s sake alone… Racism not being the least of them. “Crazy-Bitch” as I like to call it, has been a popular American horror trope since the 1930s but that’s an article for another time as to exactly why that is… But regardless, mental health is poked at as an animalistic survival instinct to kill. And when your brain is wired badly, you’re flat out dangerous. Samara in the Americanized film shows lack of empathy, does have ESP abilities… but she’s an unknown child… adopted. It’s her bizarre behavior that drives mommy dearest to kill her and throw her down the well in addition to throwing herself off a cliff. I don’t find that to be as strong, or painful for Samara, especially at the false ending of Naomi Watts “placing her to rest” and we’re supposed to feel sympathy for the painful life she went through as no one understood her.
Honestly if they’d kept the ‘mother is gifted’ aspect, and ditched the scene of the best friend from the opening being prescient in predicting Naomi’s death… I would have been a lot happier with that core lore version. Familial bond is stronger than… boogety boogety monster whom we cannot reason to understand.
About The Cast
Naomi Watts steals the show in the fact that it took me years to realize she's a brit native. (I love how trained actors are for american accents. Its a masterful skill to delivery interesting lines in a way that isn't natural to ones self.) The Ring (2002) was the film that really catapulted her career as a household name from Hollywood. Before this point the most recognizable film I found from the 90's was the sequel to Babe: Pig in the Big City.
Next up we have Martin Henderson. His career hasn't reached the same heights as that of his costar.
I'd also like to briefly mention Daveigh Chase, the girl who plays Samara our main evil entity. Daveigh has enjoyed a well recognized list of films she's been in like Donny Darko (2001), the voice of Chihiro from Spirited Away (2001) and the voice of Lilo from Disneys Lilo and Stitch (2002).
