The Ring
The Ring first made the headlines in 1998 when it was released in it's original version in Japan. It was based on a novel by Koji Suzuki and directed by Hideo Nakata and became the highest-grossing horror movie in Japanese history. The film was followed by a sequel which is absolute bollocks and a prequel which I haven't seen. I saw both the Ring and Ring 2 last summer when the brilliant Channel 4 aired them over a weekend. The Ring lives up to its hype being very good indeed. The thing I loved about it was that it carried a consistent eerie and creepy atmosphere without trying to make the audience jump as much as it could.
So anyway Hollywood buys the rights to the Ring for a remake with a budget of $45 million. Great, right? Well yes and no. I hate it when great or classic films are remade just to generate a revenue for a studio. In essence that is the motivation of this remake. Take the Italian Job for example. It's just been remade with Mark Wahlberg in Michael Caine's shoes with Italy replaced in favour of Los Angeles. Oh please! Sure they could film some great chase scenes with the new Mini but the Italian Job is a classic that shouldn't be touched. Apparently that infamous line has been changed slightly so its new form is "You're only supposed to blow the motherfucking doors off!" Nuff Said.
Anyway back to the Ring. The story follows the reporter Rachel Keller, played by Naomi Watts of Mulholland Drive fame, on her investigation of the mysterious death of her niece and three other teenagers who supposedly watched a video tape and died seven days later because of it. Obviously she manages to watch this video tape herself in the process and needs to solve the curse of the tape before her seven days are up. The plot is exactly the same as original, almost scene for scene apart from two irrelevant parts. The film progresses nicely and Keller's son, scarily similar to wotshisface from the Sixth Sense, watches it too making her investigation all the more urgent. The images on the tape are scary and creepy but the original version was far superior. There is a scene on a ferry where a horse goes mental, because the riddle of the tape involves horses, and jumps off and gets cut up in the propellers. It's a nice touch and Verbinski, the director, carries it off well but ultimately it is irrelevant and simply put there by the screenwriter as an excuse for him if anyone accuses him of copying the original too exactly. The faces of those who died are hideously gruesome though you only get quick flashes of them. The final scenes which have the twist in are great and brilliantly executed. However the original again is far better. *Spoiler* The girl Samura who is the cause of the curse climbs out of the TV and scares her victims to death. In the original Japanese version this was accomplished by making a girl crawl through a box made to look like a TV. It was simple but very effective and scared the shit out of me. In the remake an actor is replaced in favour of CGI and it works but it isn't as scary as the original.
The Fantomex Rating: 
- A good remake, a damn good modern horror, creepy and scary but also very
artistic too. Watch out for Naomi Watts, I have a feeling we'll be seeing her
more often.
I saw this film with some of the BaNaNa KrU and I would advise to anyone reading this never to go to the cinema with Nipples. Every time something remotely scary or weird happens Paul starts murmuring "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...." I am also told that he held Eldar's hand throughout the proceedings. But there's nothing in the rumours that the BaNaNa KrU is a club for the closet homosexual out there.