Two strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there or why, and soon discover they are pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.
An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.
Director:
Takashi Shimizu
Stars:
Sarah Michelle Gellar,
Jason Behr,
Clea DuVall
After a teenager has a terrifying vision of him and his friends dying in a plane crash, he prevents the accident only to have Death hunt them down, one by one.
Washed-up true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt finds a box of super 8 home movies that suggest the murder he is currently researching is the work of a serial killer whose work dates back to the 1960s.
Rachel Keller is a journalist investigating a videotape that may have killed four teenagers (including her niece). There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. If the legend is correct, Rachel will have to run against time to save her son's and her own life. Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Numerous scenes were cut down or entirely cut from the film before release. Some scenes were present only at test screenings. Others showed up in previews or the "Don't Watch This" short film on the DVD.
Samara's line "Everyone will suffer" was cut out the film but can be heard in the previews.
The bathtub suicide was much more graphic.
Samara's murder lasted longer in the original cut of the film and was much more brutal than what audiences saw in theatres. Originally, the plastic bag over Samara's head failed to subdue her, leading her killer to repeatedly strike her in the head with a large rock (which can be seen lying on the ground in some shots of the well). The rock only weakened Samara, and finally her killer resorted to slamming her head against the side of the well before dumping her in.
Some test screenings contained scenes at the beginning and end of the film involving a murderer played by Chris Cooper. The first scene involved the murderer approaching Rachel, asking her to help clear his name, claiming he is rehabilitated and no longer a threat to society. She knows he's lying and refuses. Then at the end of the movie, she pays him a visit and drops off a copy of the video. Noah goes over to Rachel's apartment and trying to find the video. When the babysitter hears him say it's a homemade video and it might be in the bedroom, she starts laughing. He finds the distorted pictures of the kids from the beginning in Rachel's room. One of the pictures shows the sign for the inn. This leads into another scene where Noah goes to the rental cabins and finds the body of the cabin manager dead in a canoe on the lake.
There was a scene where Rachel asks crab-fishers on the island about the Morgans. They say that no one could get a good haul when Samara was around. There's additional material with Rachel in Cabin 12 where she tries to watch TV, but the reception is terrible and finds a journal left by the previous guests.
Visual effects supervisor Charles Gibson said in an interview that another sequence was "previsualized", but cut from the film. "It was an all-CG montage of the 'Ring' tape being created from a point of view inside the VCR.
There is an alternate scene for Rachel and Ruth's discussion at the funeral, Rachel searches Katie's room and finds the ticket for photos. Ruth comes in and they discuss information Rachel found out from some of Katie's friends. Ruth becomes frustrated and angry about not knowing why Katie died, and charges towards the closet and explains to Rachel that she found Katie there. There is a flashback with Ruth finding Katie's corpse in the closet (same flashback used in the funeral scene).
Midway through the movie Rachel rents some movies and gets laughs from one of the employees over her picks. This led to an alternate ending, in which Rachel put the cursed tape in the sleeve for one of her rented movies and returned it to the store, where it ended up under "employee picks." See more »
Goofs
When Rachel picks up Katie's photos a monorail is seen above heading in the south direction, moments later another monorail passes going in the same direction on exactly the same track. This would not be possible as the first car would've had to return to the stop on the other end in Seattle Center, unload and reload passengers, before being able to make another trip south. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Katie:
I hate television. Gives me headaches. You know, I heard there's so many magnetic waves traveling through the air, because of TV and telephones, that we're losing, like, ten times as many brain cells as we're supposed to. Like, all the molecules in our heads are all unstable. All the companies know about it, but they're not doing anything about it. It's, like, a big conspiracy.
See more »
Crazy Credits
The 'D' in the Dreamworks logo is superimposed by an image of The Ring from the videotape at the same moment static cuts in. See more »
The Ring did three things no film of late has done. It took the genre of Horror seriously without going over the top. It is derived from a superior story and translated to American film superbly, regardless of what the naysayers say. And, while it starts off typically, it ascends into a beautiful, darkling, twisted, genuinely creepy story, which holds you through to the end.
Gore Verbinski's style is unmistakable. He has left this work well marked with his stylistic shots, and suspenseful progression.
Actually, I found this far superior to most horrors done in the last thirty years or so. A lot has been said about Ringu, the work from which this was adapted for American cinema, and inevitable subsequent comparisons made, however, that is certainly NOT the case. That argument is moot, as this work was based on the novel, "The Ring" by Koji Suzuki, so if you want something to which an honest comparison may be made, I would suggest you read the book, and leave Ringu where it belongs. Personally, I found the American adaptation much more to my liking than Ringu.
This is one twisted little creep-fest! It rates an 8.7/10 from...
the Fiend :.
60 of 83 people found this review helpful.
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The Ring did three things no film of late has done. It took the genre of Horror seriously without going over the top. It is derived from a superior story and translated to American film superbly, regardless of what the naysayers say. And, while it starts off typically, it ascends into a beautiful, darkling, twisted, genuinely creepy story, which holds you through to the end.
Gore Verbinski's style is unmistakable. He has left this work well marked with his stylistic shots, and suspenseful progression.
Actually, I found this far superior to most horrors done in the last thirty years or so. A lot has been said about Ringu, the work from which this was adapted for American cinema, and inevitable subsequent comparisons made, however, that is certainly NOT the case. That argument is moot, as this work was based on the novel, "The Ring" by Koji Suzuki, so if you want something to which an honest comparison may be made, I would suggest you read the book, and leave Ringu where it belongs. Personally, I found the American adaptation much more to my liking than Ringu.
This is one twisted little creep-fest! It rates an 8.7/10 from...
the Fiend :.