THE RING

Having already seen the Japanese version several times, I approached this Gore Verbinski Hollywood remake with a bias. However, the filmmakers have proved once again the power of a classic story. I've always suspected that a classic like Macbeth or A Christmas Carol just can't be messed up. Koji Suzuki's original story is very well constructed, and Verbinski does well by it, reproducing some shots and sequences almost exactly.

Naomi Watts (Tank Girl) stars as driven reporter Rachel Keller, who gets caught up in a mystery when it appears that her niece (Amber Tamblyn) was killed by watching a strange videotape. Her hunger for a good story overcoming any sense of decorum, Rachel tracks down the tape in question, and finds it much more strange than a mere collection of art house imagery. Once cursed by the tape herself, she inadvertently spreads the curse to her ex-boyfriend (Martin Henderson) and son (David Dorfman, soon to join the Sawyer family in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake). 

Verbinski, who proved himself a visual virtuoso with Mouse Hunt, proves himself up to the task of delivering The Ring's necessary disturbing imagery, but the script by Ehren Kruger (Scream 3) does only a hit & miss job of adapting plot points that wouldn't translate. For example, one of the original's clues on the cursed tape itself was a reference to a volcanic eruption. Perhaps Kruger should have changed it to the Mt. St. Helens eruption, but as the clue had to lead to an island location, he decided to shoehorn in a lot of nonsense about horse breeding. Another misstep is that the film's menace is shown as a lovely little girl in flashback, while the original's psychic impressions showed her as a shunned monster from the beginning. 

The remake main flaw is in Hollywood's difficulty in pulling off subtlety - the movie just tries too hard in some spots, sending its heroes down into every dark cellar it can. At one point an unnecessary secondary menace commits suicide by electrocution. But instead of a sufficiently gruesome episode of dropping a radio in the bath, we get a flooded room and a huge stack of electronic devices. It's literally overkill. Other changes fare much better, such as the discovery of the girl's bedroom, and several details that bridge logistic gaps, including some elements gathered from Ring 2. But the film's greatest strength lies in wisely remaining faithful to its source, delivering a solid fright film able to get any schoolgirl in the audience shrieking.