*** Official "THE RING" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[James T]

Not a scary movie, what was all the fuss about?

I think it's more of a suspenseful movie than a scary movie. I always felt something was going to happen in every shot. I loved the camera angles. How the shot would be in a narrow hallway one scene then in the next a big open room.

Someone mentioned Hitchcock earlier. I was wondering about some of the shots in this film being similar to the Sixth Sense. I guess everyone borrows from everyone.

I also liked the ending right before the credits in Ringu. They could have put that ending instead of just cutting out the Cooper ending.

Slightly off topic, but in Ringu, I laughed for a little while when Sadaka gets attacked right before she falls in the well. Her attacker almost falls down the well with her.

 

[Ron-P]

Rented this last night and watched it...alone. Daughter was sleeping, wife was out. Not bad, creepy with a few jump scenes, but overall slow leaving too much unexplained.
The scariest part came after the movie ended and I fired up the "don't watch this" clip. Right after the ring appeared, my phone rang. Linda has impeccable timing. I half expected to hear 7 days, instead of Hi honey, I'm on my way home. Never did finish watching that clip.
I will agree with Greg above that Sign's was much more creepy and scary.
Peace Out~

 

[doug zdanivsky]

I thought Signs was the slower paced, and definately less scary of the two.

To each his own, I guess.

The Ring was MEANT to get you thinking, as well as scare you. It DID tie up alot of loose ends, though. You just have to think it through. The more you think about it, the scarier the movie is, I found.

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

I won't call it a scary film, no matter how much I think on it, but it is a smarter film than I first gave it credit for at the theaters.

Bruce

 

[ScottH]

I just saw this for the first time the other night. I agree that it was very creepy and spooky (I guess in the way that I was hoping Blair Witch would be, but wasn't). But in the end I was left feeling very unsatisfied. I'm all for movies open to interpretation (a'la Mulholland Drive), but this one just seemed to have to logic or reason to it at all, and I think it all stems from too much explaining at the end. I think it would have been a much better overall experience for me if the film maker would have ended the movie right after the kid went through the whole, "You didn't help her, did you?" bit.

 

[Alex Spindler]

Scott, many of the fans of the film have been spending pages in this thread in software trying to answer complaints that it didn't explain enough.

 

[MikeFR]

There is an interesting article on The Ring up at Salon.com in the entertainment section, just so ya know

 

[Sam Hatch]

On the Chris Cooper tip, he still manages to fit in a cameo in the film -- his picture and story are on the coffee-'ring'ed newspaper right before the 'big scene'.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Uh guys, it's happening again. How eerie. This happened in my own circle of friends as well.
People are confusing Chris Cooper and
Richard Lineback
Richard Lineback was the star quarterback's dad in Varsity Blues. And yes, that's the same guy that says in a Texas drawl, "KNOCK OFF THIS HERE CAN!!!"

 

[Alex Spindler]

"Richard, do you make yourself look like Chris Cooper?"

"I don't. I just...do."

"Richard, I want you to start telling me the truth. You don't want to keep looking like Chris Cooper, do you?"

"But I do. And I'm sorry. It won't stop."

 

[Sam Hatch]

Am I reading this right -- are you telling me that the spitting-image photo of Chris Cooper behind bars on the Parole Hearing newspaper article (also titled 'The Jason Valen Case' or something similar) at approx. 1:39:34 on the DVD is actually a picture of Richard Lineback? Color me kooky if 'tis so!
Why would there be a parole hearing associated with the innkeeper character? It makes more sense that it's an article about Cooper's parole after he'd supposedly 'found god' and reformed, setting up the cut scene where Rachel makes him watch the tape. If it's Lineback, the article doesn't seem to add up. The fact that the article also has a "The ...... Case" font makes it look like this is another update in an ongoing story -- but the innkeeper's body was only discovered the night before.
Am I missing something here? Besides sleep, that is?

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Alex, you kill me.

 

[Christopher Bosley]

Dunno if it was mentioned but as to how the images got on the tape, remember that Rachel's niece said that Josh was trying to record the football game while they were at the cabin and that when they played it back, then they saw the tape. So I assume that's when Samara imprinted the images on the tape.

 

[ArmandV]

The Ring was too much Hollywoodized, IMHO. I prefer Ringu (the original Japanese film) a lot more.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Saw it late yesterday/earlier tonight. Color me creeped out, since I'm up to roughly 3 in the morning. I find the contrast between Samara and Daveigh Chase's character on Oliver Beene quite striking.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I saw this today and liked the homages to Hitchcock's Psycho. First the kid walking up the stairs to Katie's room at the funeral/wake looked like Martin Balsam. And when Rachel finds Noah's body, she touches his shoulder to turn him around just like Vera Miles did when she found Norman's mother in the fruit cellar. Good stuff.

Good points from Rob more than a year ago. I was just watching my DVD finally for the October challenge (talk about a long queue in the "to be seen" pile).
Now I might have mentioned this stuff before so I'll go back and check my older posts here, but for now I risk repetition to point out some more homages in the film.
Hitchcock - Rear Window, as she walks out onto the balcony early on Watts looks into other apartments across the way. One of them features a guy in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast. Definitely intentional reference.
Psycho, another one. At the end Watts takes a shower and the scene ends with a "blood circling the drain" close-up in apparent reference to the Hitch film.
Legend of Hell House - Maybe its just the way to do it, but I felt the type of titles and how they were presented marking off each day was very similar to how it was done for Hell House. The types of shots, the scoring, the font, all felt similar.
Another Richard Matheson penned script, The Night Stalker, led to a sequel, The Night Strangler. That TV movie features a news reporter in Seattle tracking down a killer. Not identical, but kinda similar. In fact in Strangler they have a limited number of days to catch the supernatural killer before he stops and goes away for another 21 years (he must kill every 21 years and do it within a certain number of days).
I just happened to watch these back to back, which made the association even odder to me. There can't be that many films about Seattle news reporters tracking down a murdering monster with a time limit before its too late and here I was watching them right in a row.
Of course the fake ending is also the real ending to The Changling, which I'm pretty sure I mentioned a couple of years ago.

 

[Drew Dockery]

I'm bringing this thread back because this seemed like as good of a place to ask as any.

Does anyone know the significance of the hair over the face in japanese culture? It was mentioned as something from Japanese culture in one of the Ring 2 extras.

 

[mikeSantos]

Overall, the movie was ok. The 2nd one didn't scare me as much as the first one.