Director: Gore Verbinski
Screenplay: Ehren Kruger
Starring: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, Daveigh Chase, David Dorfman, Brian Cox, Amber Tamblyn
One-sentence summary: Rachel Keller investigates a rumor about a cursed videotape that kills you in a week after you watch it.
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Screenplay: Ehren Kruger and Jonathan Liebesman
Starring: Ryan Merriman, Emily VanCamp, Alex Breckenridge, Josh Wise, Justin Allen
One-sentence summary: An underground subculture has formed that uses Samara's cursed tape in a twisted game of chicken.
Director: Hideo Nakata
Screenplay: Ehren Kruger
Starring: Naomi Watts, David Dorfman, Simon Baker, Elizabeth Perkins, Sissy Spacek, Ryan Merriman, Emily VanCamp
One-sentence summary: Rachel and Aidan have started a new life in the small town of Astoria, Oregon but their peace is short-lived when Samara finds them.
Review: Stories are never set in stone. What makes a new interpretation fresh is how it takes the source material and alters it for whatever reason, and then we see how the changes affect the overall feeling. Sometimes they work beautifully. Other times they don't.
For all the vitriol diehard fans of the original give the remake, you have to hand it to The Ring for ushering in a wave of remakes of Asian horror films. They obviously did something right, and only the most reluctant fans would refuse to allow The Ring the chance to impact them as Ring did. Yes, The Ring is a louder film than Ring. Yes, it sort of holds the viewer's hand by trying to come up with explanations for most everything in the film. But to compare it endlessly to Ring would be unfair to The Ring because, frankly, The Ring is still quite good. The big changes they made--allowing Samara to appear like an innocent victim at first, having Anna kill Samara instead of the father figure like in Ring--add new layers to a familiar story that, yes, makes it fresh and exciting. While it becomes pretty obvious after awhile that Samara is the main antagonist, it's still brilliant to have her line, "But I do. And I'm sorry, it won't stop" have a double meaning. If there was anything I took away from the remake, it would be that line. I loved it on my first viewing and I still love it nine years later.
If there's one big complaint I have about The Ring, it would be the needless haunting. The Ring is sort of tailored towards an audience raised on Hollywood films where things can't stay static for too long, but I feel like the excessive haunting makes it a little too obvious that Samara is the true antagonist. She's a child, and children like to play with their toys. Rachel's theory that Anna is the progenitor of the curse is a nice (if obviously mistaken) change from Ring but the audience isn't going to fall for that, not when the victims have been messed around with for so much up to that point in the movie. However, Anna's unexpected role as Samara's murderer ends up being expanded upon wonderfully in the sequel, if unintentionally (and I have a low enough opinion of Ehren Kruger that I do believe he stumbled upon this plot thread by accident).
The main theme of The Ring Two is motherhood. Samara, for some unexplained reason, begins to identify Rachel as her mother. The issue I have with The Ring Two is that it doesn't hone in on this plot quickly enough. The unrated cut of the movie adds an extra 20 minutes, something that the movie just doesn't need. I wish the other characters cast suspicion on Rachel as an abusive mother (which she certainly isn't) earlier. I still get uncomfortable when I watch Rachel try to drown Aidan in an effort to make Samara leave his body. You can tell that she thinks she's crazy for even trying it, but she does it anyway because she feels like she has no other choice. She's even taking advice from a crazy lady! I also loved the suggestion that this hasn't been the first time Samara has haunted a woman and her child in an effort to find a new mother figure. The Ring Two has a lot of great ideas going for it, but it's executed rather haphazardly, and I'm pretty sure I can blame both Nakata and Kruger equally.
But speaking of great ideas, Rings is something completely unique in the entire franchise, both Japanese and American. It's easier to pull off in the American version, of course, because of the heightened emphasis on the haunting. The idea that there are people out there who will use the hallucinations from the cursed tape as a way to get high? It's brilliant, simply brilliant. I honestly wish they had never come up with this idea until recently so we could see it put into action in The Ring 3D (which may or may not be coming, I'm not sure anymore). As it stands, Rings is a great bite-sized companion to The Ring and The Ring Two, but I'm certain that with a bit of work, it could easily be expanded into a full-length feature. Alas, we're past that point now, so I'm only speaking out loud.
I'd also like to make a quick note about the score by Hans Zimmer. He made some fantastic themes for the films, and they certainly rank amongst my most memorable scores.
The Hollywood version of the cursed tape story isn't perfect, but then again neither is the original. (Ever notice how both Rachel and Reiko are still being haunted through day 7 even though they've both made a copy well before then?) I have to hand it to Hollywood for putting their own spin on the tale and going in a completely different direction than the source material. In the end, we got some great ideas that may never have been seen otherwise because there's simply no place for them in the Japanese films.
Final word: The Ring is a great, if slightly flawed, horror film that's sure to please anyone who isn't spending the entire runtime comparing it to the Japanese original. Rings is a brilliant short film that's a glimpse into what could have been had they expanded the short into a full-length feature. The Ring Two is perhaps thirty minutes too long if you're watching the unrated cut but it explores some fantastic ideas otherwise.
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