The Ring
My friends kept telling me how this is the scariest movie ever and how they couldn't answer the phone, watch tv, etc. after they saw it. So they and I saw it last night, and for the life of me I can't figure out what the big deal is. I wasn't scared at all. I mean it was creepy but not frightening a bit. So after it was over, I discretely picked up my cell phone and called my friend's house which I was at. They all FREAKED OUT even though they had already seen the movie months before. Weird shit.
[ 03-08-2003: Message edited by: G4Dude ]</p>
[ 03-08-2003: Message edited by: G4Dude ]</p>
Comments
Maybe this is because I saw the origninal Japanese version before.......
All that "film 101" montages with the scratchy background noise, if anything, it was annoying than scary. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Maybe it's me but none of the movies made these days are scary, just gimmicky. Some may be disturbing but NOT scary. For me, it was movies like Shining and Salem's Lot that got me all f*cked up if I were roaming around in a deserted snowy road or in darkness I see red eyes of my cat...that flashes back to the scene in Salem's Lot where the old man and the young guy dig her daughter's grave and finds the tunnel, walks about in the darkness and the daughter comes up to the old man and says "Papa." That scene just freaked me out. :eek:
[ 03-09-2003: Message edited by: kwondo ]</p>
I enjoyed the part with the horse.
[ 03-09-2003: Message edited by: Stagger ]</p>
Still a good movie and worth watching - can't wait for the sequel so we can find out who the girl is and where she actually came from!
maybe I'll go afterwards to the cinema and watch the new version?
The Japanese version has very little in the way of loud sound/camera cut/scream, which really spoils the remake: it's the usual story of a great film being weakened as it's watered down for a mass audience.
The original has pretty much no "scary music", but it does have a very unsettling background of chimes/groans/sea/rustles that go on throughout - you only realise something freaky is about to happen when the sound drops off and leaves you in silence.
The subtitles aren't great, but Ringu is definitely one of the spookiest films I have ever watched. Watch it by yourself, ideally with headphones on in a darkened room, and you will be scared. If you steel yourself in advance you'll be able to be cynical about it, but let yourself go for an hour or two and you will enjoy it. Once your heart stops pounding...
It's a remarkable film, and there's a lot of similar Japanese movies which never really make it out into the West - a shame, as it's a very different style of story-telling to what we normally get. It's definitely worth checking out Amazon for stuff like this (Battle Royale, The Audition, etc). Opens your eyes to how narrow and flimsy a lot of "blockbuster" films are...
[ 03-16-2003: Message edited by: sadako ]</p>
While I was watching the Ring I was all wrapped up in the mystery. While I watched Blair Witch, I mostly laughed. But I didn't sleep that night, just couldn't put the imagery out of my mind. Funny how that works sometimes.
<strong>... i wish we knew why she was so evil...</strong><hr></blockquote>
My theory is that she is evil because of the way she was concieved. No this is based in part off some of the extra footage from the dvd, "Don't look here"...
Her mother kept having miscarrages, "My wife was not supposed to have a child", Then they go away and come back and have samara, who is evil from the start. Ok so what? Well think, what did the father do? He bread horses. His wife had no trouble concieving, but only carrying the baby to term. There the images of the fetus and cutting of flesh (extra sceens), plus the images samara created of the doll with all the needles in it, and the horses.
Its my theory that with the help of the "foreign doctor" (extra sceens) that they concieved the child and then impanted the fetus in a horse to carry it to term. This is why she is evil, why people say they "violated nature" (extra sceens), why samara drove the horses to suicide...
Crazy I know... But it does kinda all fit together...
Anyway, this is what the film makers wanted to create, speculation of the film, to build interest and get people talking, it leads to more video sales and increases the possibility of a sequel and that all = more money.
P.S. I have not seen the original "ringu" but I have heard from a few people who have that its quite lame and this remake is done so much better.
<strong>It's definitely worth checking out Amazon for stuff like this (Battle Royale, The Audition, etc). Opens your eyes to how narrow and flimsy a lot of "blockbuster" films are...
[ 03-16-2003: Message edited by: sadako ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
eek, audition.... i saw the preview for that and said "no thank you" (i hate needles). i opted instead to see miike's "katakurike no kofuku", which rocked. i have the battle royale dvd now and plan on watching it soon, as well as reading the newly translated novel, which looks good. just have to be able to take all the violence.
<strong>My theory is that she is evil because of the way she was concieved. No this is based in part off some of the extra footage from the dvd, "Don't look here"... <snip> [\\qb][\\quote]
Interesting... hadn't thought of that particular tie.
[quote][qb]P.S. I have not seen the original "ringu" but I have heard from a few people who have that its quite lame and this remake is done so much better.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I found this too - The Ring was much better than Ringu - it was much richer, had a tighter mystery, and every single frame of the video snippet had something to do with the story, unlike Ringu where it was just strange.
Then I found out that The Ring is a conglomeration of all *three* Ringu movies, Ringu, Ringu 2, and Ringu 0 (prequel), so it had much more material to draw from.
And Guartho, I had the same experience - during the movie I was enthralled by the mystery and the crafting of the film itself... and then every time I closed my eyes while drifting off to sleep that night I jerked awake because I was *sure* Samara was crawling out of the tv...