The Ring (2002 film)

The Ring is a 2002 American supernatural horror film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Cox, and Daveigh Chase. It is a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring, based on the novel of the same name by Koji Suzuki. Watts portrays a journalist who investigates a cursed videotape that seemingly kills the viewer seven days after watching it.

The Ring was released theatrically on October 18, 2002, and received mostly positive reviews. Many critics praised the direction, screenplay, cinematography, Watts's performance, and reliance on dread and visuals over gore, but criticized the lack of character development. The film grossed over $249 million worldwide on a $48 million production budget, making it one of the highest-grossing horror remakes. It is the first installment of the American Ring series, and is followed by The Ring Two and Rings, was released in 2005 and 2017, respectively.

The Ring paved the way for English-language remakes of Asian horror films, such as The Grudge, Dark Water, Pulse, One Missed Call, The Eye, Shutter, Mirrors and The Uninvited.

Plot
Teenagers Katie and Becca discuss a legend about a cursed videotape; whoever watches it dies seven days later. Katie confesses that she watched the tape with her friends the previous week. That night, Katie is killed by an unseen force.

At Katie's funeral, Ruth, Katie's mother, urges her sister Rachel, a Seattle journalist, to investigate her daughter's death as she recalls the night she discovered Katie's disfigured body in the closet, with doctors being unable to explain the cause of death. Rachel discovers that Katie's friends were killed in bizarre accidents on the night of her death. She also learns that Becca has been institutionalized after witnessing Katie's death. Rachel goes to Shelter Mountain Inn, the mountain retreat where Katie and her friends watched the supposed cursed tape. While probing the inn's manager for details concerning Katie and her friends' stay, she notices an unmarked videotape on a nearby shelf advertising rental videos for guests; while the manager's back is turned, she slips the tape into her purse. She rents the same cabin that Katie stayed in and reluctantly watches the tape; it contains gruesome and disturbing imagery, culminating in the static image of a lone well in an empty field. After the tape ends, she receives a phone call from an unknown caller who whispers "seven days".

Rachel recruits the help of her ex-boyfriend Noah, a skeptical video analyst. He watches the tape and Rachel makes him a copy so they can both investigate where it came from. Rachel experiences supernatural symptoms of the curse, including irregular nosebleeds and disturbing dreams that seep into her reality. She discovers hidden imagery of a lighthouse and identifies a woman on the tape: a horse breeder, Anna Morgan, who committed suicide after some of her horses drowned themselves off Moesko Island. Rachel finds her son, Aidan, watching the videotape.

Leaving Aidan in Ruth's care, Rachel heads for Moesko Island to speak to Anna's widower, Richard, while Noah travels to Eola Psychiatric Hospital to view Anna's medical files. On the ferry to the island, a horse is affected by Rachel's cursed presence and leaps to its death. On the island, she discovers Anna had an adopted daughter, Samara, but Richard denies it. Rachel speaks to the island doctor, who explains that Anna adopted Samara due to her infertility. Samara possessed the ability to psychically etch images onto objects and into minds, tormenting her parents and their horses. Noah finds a psychiatric file on Samara which mentions a missing video record last seen by Richard.

Rachel sneaks into the Morgan house and watches the missing video, which shows Samara explaining her powers during a psychotherapy session. Richard discovers her and strikes her. Horrified that Samara's evil is still at large, he electrocutes himself in the bathtub. Noah arrives and he and Rachel enter the barn. In a loft converted to a bedroom to isolate Samara from her mother, they find a drawing of a tree behind the wallpaper; Rachel recognizes it as a tree at the Shelter Mountain Inn.

Rachel returns with Noah to the cabin at Shelter Mountain Inn, where they are led to a well beneath the floorboards. They remove the lid and Rachel is pushed inside. A hand grabs her, and Rachel experiences a vision of Anna suffocating and dumping Samara into the well, where she survived for seven days. Samara's corpse surfaces from the water. After Rachel is rescued from the well, they arrange a proper burial for Samara. Noah tells Rachel that they are now safe as more than seven days have passed since she watched the videotape.

Aidan warns Rachel that it was a mistake to try to help Samara. Rachel realizes that Noah's seven days are up and rushes to save him, but the vengeful ghost of Samara materializes on his TV screen, crawls out of it and kills him. Rachel finds his disfigured corpse and returns home to destroy the tape. She concludes she was spared because she made a copy, which Aidan watched. Rachel has Aidan make a copy of the copy to show to someone else, saving him from Samara. Aidan asks what will happen to the person they show it to, but Rachel doesn't answer.

Production
The Ring went into production without a completed script. Ehren Kruger wrote three drafts of the screenplay before Scott Frank came on to do an uncredited rewrite. Verbinski was initially inspired to do a remake of Ringu after Walter F. Parkes sent him a VHS copy of the original Japanese film, which he describes as "intriguing", "Pulp" and "avant-garde". The film also sought to retain the minimalism that was prevalent throughout Ringu and was decidedly set in Seattle, due to its "wet and isolated" atmosphere. Verbinski also admitted to not wanting to cast "big stars" as he wanted his film to be "discovered" and describes the wave of harsh criticism from hardcore fans of the original Japanese film as "inevitable" although he expressed desire for hardcore fans of the original to find the remake as equally compelling.

Soundtrack
The film features an original score composed by Hans Zimmer (who would later collaborate on Gore Verbinski's other works). The soundtrack release did not coincide with the film's theatrical run. It was released in 2005, accompanying The Ring Two in an album that combined music from both The Ring and The Ring Two. The soundtrack contains a few themes associated with the characters, moods and locations. The score makes use of string instruments, pianos, violins and as well as synthesizers.

Marketing
In order to advertise The Ring, many promotional websites were formed featuring the characters and places in the film. The video from the cursed videotape was played in late night programming over the summer of 2002 without any reference to the film.

Box office
The film was financially successful, and the box office gross increased from its first weekend to its second. The initial success led DreamWorks to increase the film into 700 additional theaters. The Ring made $8.3 million in its first two weeks in Japan, compared to Ring's $6.6 million total box-office gross. The success of The Ring opened the way for American remakes of several other Japanese horror films, including The Grudge and Dark Water.

Critical reception
The Ring was met with generally positive reviews from film critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 71% based on 206 reviews, with a rating average of 6.6/10. The site's consensus reads: "With little gore and a lot of creepy visuals, The Ring gets under your skin, thanks to director Gore Verbinski's haunting sense of atmosphere and an impassioned performance from Naomi Watts." Metacritic gave the film a score of 57/100 (mixed or average) from 36 reviews. On Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper gave the film "Thumbs Up" and said it was very gripping and scary despite some minor unanswered questions. Roger Ebert gave the film "Thumbs Down" and felt it was boring and "borderline ridiculous"; he also disliked the extended, detailed ending. IGN's Jeremy Conrad praised the movie for its atmospheric set up and cinematography, and said that "there are 'disturbing images'… but the film doesn't really rely on gore to deliver the scares… The Ring relies on atmosphere and story to deliver the jumps, not someone being cleaved in half by a glass door" (referencing a scene from Thirteen Ghosts). Film Threat's Jim Agnew called it "dark, disturbing and original throughout. You know that you're going to see something a little different than your usual studio crap." Verbinski was praised for slowly revealing the plot while keeping the audience interested, "the twists keep on coming, and Verbinski shows a fine-tuned gift for calibrating and manipulating viewer expectations."

Despite the praise given to Verbinski's direction, critics described the characters as weak. The Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum said that the film was "an utter waste of Watts… perhaps because the script didn't bother to give her a character", whereas other critics such as William Arnold from Seattle Post-Intelligencer said the opposite: "she projects intelligence, determination and resourcefulness that carry the movie nicely." Many critics regarded Dorfman's character as a "creepy-child" "Sixth Sense cliché." A large sum of critics, like Miami Heralds Rene Rodriguez and USA Todays Claudia Puig found themselves confused and thought that by the end of the movie "[the plot] still doesn't make much sense".

The film ranked number 20 on the cable channel Bravo's list of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Bloody Disgusting ranked the film sixth in their list of the "Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade", with the article saying that "The Ring was not only the first American 'J-Horror' remake out of the gate; it also still stands as the best."

Sequels
A sequel, The Ring Two, was released in 2005. A short film titled Rings was also released in 2005, and is set between The Ring and The Ring Two. Another sequel, also titled Rings, was released in 2017.