The Ring

Saw The Ring, the English-language remake of the Japanese film of the same name. It was a very frustrating film. Within the first ten minutes or so we hit many horror cliches: Pretty teenagers in catholic school-girl uniforms sleeping over, being dumb ("we're losing, like, ten times as many brain cells as we're supposed to.") talking about Boys and trying to scare each other ("Hah! I totally got you!!") Eventually one of them croaks and we instantly move on to a serious and blank-faced little boy. He's drawing something spooky in an empty classroom because what the hell else could he possibly be doing? We are then introduced to his mother, the protagonist.

She storms into the room, jabbering away at her boss on her cellphone. She's supposed to be tough but vulnerable, in-charge but capable of sobbing hysterically. She has the uncomfortable chore of having to deal with Hollywood's schizophrenic relationship with Strong Women. She spends most of her time being alternately angry and stupid. At one point she asks her ex-husband (who is an A/V tech) to look at a VHS tape. He expresses bewilderment that there's no "control track" on the cassette. "Hey Noah," she says "can you pretend for a second that I don't read Video Geek Magazine?" Look lady, your ignorance is not his fault. Just ask him what a control track is. There's no need to make snide jokes at him (maybe she was restraining herself from just shrieking "Neeerrrd!" at him.) Later on, she breaks his equipment by grabbing at it while shouting "just let me do it!" She then tells him he needs to grow up. Yet later on in the film, she's going through a library's newspaper archive, standing on top of one stack (grinding the paper to pulp with her heels,) she lets one bound collection drop to the ground, unheeded (fuck that one. It wasn't the one she wanted anyway) and finally pulls a stack down on her own stupid head. Even at this simple task she fails. I wrote down many times she failed to act like a genuine, empathetic, human being. I could go on. Also, I hate her face.

Okay, the plot is fairly well-known by now, having been parodied and referenced a lot, but here is a run-down on the premise anyway: there's an evil videotape that's killing people after they watch it. It's up to ace reporter Crazy Lady to track down the source and nature of the evil. The plot touches on the fears of parenthood, that your child will be something you don't recognize, and also an interesting paranoia about sharing experiences. The school-girls in the intro talk about the malign influence of electromagnetic waves, setting up the pseudo-scientific justification for the ensuing evil. One character denounces the reporter for spreading misery around, making everyone experience their tragedy. That's an interesting way of looking at things, if nothing else.

The film is shot in a nice way. Shot somewhere vaguely New-England-y-looking, the film highlights the greens and blues, making everything look very chilly and hostile. There's a recurrent image of water which is more plot-related than thematic. The evil video-tape is neat, in its way. There's a scene with a red tree that is quite nice, though a little silly. I haven't seen the original, so I can't judge which one I like better, but this one was mainly just frustrating to me. The protagonist is annoying, the little boy (who becomes a major character,) I hate almost as much as I hate his mother. The A/V dude is the most likable, but even he has moments of poorly explained nonsense. The film is not jump-y, thank goodness, relying more on mystery and suspense than shock and viscera. Despite that, however, I was just too annoyed by the characters to enjoy this film. This is becoming a theme for me and horror films.