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

[Greg_C_T]

I was really let down by this movie. Sure it had a few disturbing images that are still in my head, but I felt overall, it was more mystery than horror. Signs was a scarier movie. Nobody screamed once in the theater when I saw The Ring. Not so for Signs. Anyway, not to compare apples to oranges, but I'd give The Ring a :star: :star: :star: out of 5 rating.

 

[BarryNS]

I finally saw this flick this evening. Pretty good - not quite as creepy as "Signs" but at least less "preachy"/cliched, but I'm cursing myself that I FORGOT hearing that you have to stay till the end of the credits - had to leave to be somewhere else quickly, so I was gone and in the parking lot when I remembered I was supposed to stay!
I gather from the comments here that during the end credit sequence we are treated to various scenes from the tape - anything else significant?

 

[Malcolm R]

Hunh? I stayed and didn't see anything at the end.

 

[Matt Stryker]

(Spoiler ridden)
Heres another interesting tidbit to ponder. A couple who cannot conceive/miscarries a lot all of a sudden returns from "vacation" and sucessfully have a child...after seeing a "specialist". The child turns out to be demonic and causes such awful visions and destruction that the mother is forced to kill her even though the child is the thing she always wanted most. The mother then is haunted by the visions until she also dies.
Sounds like the specialist might be pleased to meet you...care to guess his name ?
Quite Faust-like.
What I took away from the ending was that they had to show others the tape to survive; when the kid says what will happen to them (the future people who view the tape) hes talking about the theater audience. I'm not sure if everyone just "got" that and hasn't mentioned it, or if I was the only one. A great little tag-you're-it finale.
On a more HT note, this movie had incredible ambient bass that gave it a sense of foreboding. Can't wait to hear (and see) it at home.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I don't think that the audience is supposed to be who they show the tape to, but I think that they're just going to show it to someone else. What I got from it was sort of a "you could be the next one to see the tape" thing.

 

[Rob Willey]

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.

Rob

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Good catch, there. The staircase scene registered while I was watching it but I had forgotten about it until you mentioned it.

 

[Beast]

I noticed that no one posted the info about the Chris Cooper being cut from the Ring. So here is why his character was cut, straight from the actors mouth.

Two dropped scenes were revealed today by Chris Cooper, the original opening and ending to the exceedingly popular The Ring.......
Sci-Fi talked with Chris Cooper about some scenes he shot that were removed from the final cut..
"Chris Cooper told SCI FI Wire that he acted in two scenes in the supernatural thriller film The Ring, but that the scenes were deleted during the test-screening process. "It was what they call a bookend," Cooper said in an interview. "I opened the movie and closed the movie. It was two scenes, and I was a serial rapist or a murderer who deserved everything that was coming to him. Because [Naomi Watts' character] was a journalist, I was trying to convince her that I had found God and I had straightened my ways and rehabilitated myself. I was looking for an out, and she didn't buy it, correctly so. Then in the tail end, she pays me a visit and gives me the tape."
"The film as released ends ambiguously. Cooper said his bookends caused too many questions in test screenings. "What I hear is when they ran the screenings, it was more a disruption than anything. They said, 'Well, where's Cooper? We want to see more of him.' So they cut it all."

I'm glad they cut it out. It got the film off to a quicker start, and also ends the the film more mysteriously. I much prefer not having it all tied up with a cute little bow. Leave us the mystery as to who is she going to give the tape to, so that her son doesn't die. Especially since she's seen what the girl does to the people she kills. Hopefully they will include the cut footage on the DVD in the Deleted Scenes. But I am extremely happy they went with the bolder ending of not wrapping things up.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

I realize this has already been talked to death, but for some reason I can't find the official discussion thread for the movie in the search engine.

Just watched the DVD tonight.. Spooky! Not as bad as the hype, though.

I don't get still how the tape came into being.. What was driving the horses crazy? Why DID she kill her daughter? Why doesn't she sleep? Especially seeing as how they put her soul to rest?

Is there a website where they go through this stuff? How do I get to the official discussion thread?

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

The tape came into being because Samara could project her thoughts onto a medium-in this case, a VHS tape that was recorded above the well.
The horses were being driven crazy by Samara. She was causing them to see the images that people were also seeing. She clearly did not like the horses because 1-her father loved them more than her and 2-they kept her awake when she was trying to sleep.

Why she killed her daughter isn't so clear but the assumption would be that by killing her, she could stop Samara and the havoc she was causing. It wasn't that the woman was crazy, just that Samara had been so relentless with her torture.

As for the last question(s), I would think that Samara was a very disturbed person, haunted by visions and possessed the power to reveal those visions to other beings. She didn't sleep because of the things she saw and in turn, all she wanted was that other people suffer as she had. Plus, she said that it wouldn't stop so either it was beyond her control or that she was evil in the sense that tormenting others gave her a satisfaction.

Bruce

 

[Patrick Sun]

I've merged Doug Z's thread into the official discussion thread for "The Ring".

 

[Morgan Jolley]

First of all, they DIDN'T put her soul to rest. Bringing her out of the well made her "more powerful."
Second, the mother killed the daughter because she thought (correctly so) that Samara was responsible for the horses committing suicide. She thought killing her off would stop her, but it didn't. After she killed Samara, her mother went crazy and killed herself.
Third, Samara doesn't sleep because she's evil, I guess.

 

[Alex Spindler]

The reason that Samara doesn't sleep is because she's an avid coffee drinker. You see, her inspiration for the ring was because of the numerous coffee cup rings she left everywhere.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

Thanks Patrick

>>>First of all, they DIDN'T put her soul to rest. Bringing her out of the well made her "more powerful."

Hmmm.. Why would that make her more powerful? How did the boy know that that was a no-no? What WERE they supposed to do? So, her goal was to start a sort of chain-mail tape, so more and more people could suffer? If they did, she'd leave them alone? What were those pictures the doctor was showing her? X-rays they took of her? WAS Samara adopted?

I get the explanation about the tape above the well in the room being transformed.. That's a big thing that was bugging me.

Wonder why it would start up all of the sudden.. Or maybe it's been happening for a while?

Also got why the girlfriend of the girl who died went crazy. The thing that came out of the TV didn't kill the girlfriend, just waited for it's target to come up the stairs.. Spooky!

I wonder what the Japanese version was like?

 

[doug zdanivsky]

What I took away from the ending was that they had to show others the tape to survive; when the kid says what will happen to them (the future people who view the tape) hes talking about the theater audience.

Ah, so the director's big message was DVD-pirating is acceptable, if your life is at stake..

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Hmmm.. Why would that make her more powerful? How did the boy know that that was a no-no? What WERE they supposed to do? So, her goal was to start a sort of chain-mail tape, so more and more people could suffer? If they did, she'd leave them alone? What were those pictures the doctor was showing her? X-rays they took of her? WAS Samara adopted?

She is more powerful afterwards because now she's not trapped in the well and she can spread her "message" more. The boy knows about this because he knows that she is so evil that she can't be stopped. What are you supposed to do? Not watch the tape in the first place. If you do watch it, you have to make a copy and give it to someone and get them to watch it. This way, her message spreads. The whole idea is that she is so evil that even if she doesn't kill them, people become aware of her and are afraid. The X-rays the doctor had were ones that Samara had imprinted psychically, which is why they have strange imagery. For example, one is of a rocking horse in the water (which is supposed to represent the horses she made commit suicide), and another is a barbie doll with needles stuck in it (her mother had an artificial insemination, I guess). I'm not sure if Samara was adopted, but I guess either way she's a hellspawn.

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

Wonder why it would start up all of the sudden.. Or maybe it's been happening for a while?

I think it started more out of circumstance than anything. The kids were trying to tape a football game in the cabin which Samara was under. I think it can be deduced that with the tape and the x-ray, Samara can project her images onto things being recorded rather than on something like a prerecorded VHS tape that someone at the cabin is just watching. However, it must have occurred before, since the urban legend was already in existence.

Bruce

 

[Morgan Jolley]

However, it must have occurred before, since the urban legend was already in existence

Like someone hinted at before, just because there's an urban legend doesn't mean it happened before.

 

[doug zdanivsky]

However, it must have occurred before, since the urban legend was already in existence.

That's what was thinking.. That this is just one of many tapes that have been "produced" by Samara. Otherwise how would that girl-friend know about it?

But now I think one of the other kids from the cabin blabbed, and the word got around really fast.. This is more likely, I think, actually.

Like I say, not as scary as it was all hyped up to be, but damn if it didn't make you think after watching it! Really enjoyed it!

As for the "camp" factor, I'm assuming the first part of the movie with the two girls telling ghost stories that end badly may have been why some people labelled it as such.

And yes, they did do a little more explaining than they had to.. But I know I myself like to get to the bottom of things and not have loose ends. Dunno if that's a Western trend or not, but I doubt I'm the only one who feels that way.

 

[John^Lal]

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