|
| THE
RING
With Noami Watts, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox
Directed by
Gore Verbinski
What seems at first to be another victim of the nu-slasher
genre blooms into a highly innovative, intriguing and scary film. There is a rumour
about a VHS video tape - once you watch its freaky imagery, the phone rings and
a voice notifies you that you have 7 days left. The hoax becomes gripping reality
when a journalist's niece and three of her friends die at the exact same time,
seven days after they watched the tape together. She decides to investigate the
possibility and tracks the tape down. From there onwards her seven-day countdown
is an absorbing meandering of clues and horrendous discoveries. With
amazing imagery, techniques, narrative and performances, director Gore Verbinski
manages to create a hybrid of classic horror and technology that sends the viewer
far beyond their expectations. Here are neither masked men with knives, nor detectable
hit songs to go with the soundtrack release and has nothing to do with Hobbits.
The Ring
is as surprising as it is original (its title unfolding deep into the film and
not exactly what you're expecting). The great casting includes a kid, an intense,
serious young lad that looks as if he has an ancient soul. Naomi Watts seems to
have developed a taste for the strange and the near-inexplicable after her tremendous
stint with David Lynch's Mulholland
Drive. Writer Ehren Kruger
managed to come up with a great script which Verbinski translates to the screen
in a vividly striking style that sets this spine chiller far apart from your usual
romping blood & guts crap.
[Did you know - apparently the movie's based
on an Eastern film! The little girl from this Western version won the 2003 MTV
Best Villain award]
5 / B
- PB |
