|
www.kevacho.com
©2002-2024
Kevin Michael Vance
Writer - Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Go Back To Reviews
Title: The Ring
Director: Gore Verbinski
Year: 2002
Reviewed: August 25, 2004
| Rating: |
|
 | |
| |
| |
 | |
Fast Food Meal-Third Highest Rating |
[Rating Definitions]
|
|
|
I certainly hope that by now, you have all seen this movie. (All, of course, being the plethora of readers I have on this here little website; which consists, I think, entirely of three people, my mom, my dad, and my brother. Thanks guys.) I realize this review is some... 2 years late, but this movie is so flippin' good and bears looking at, and appreciating, again and again.
I give The Ring an extremely high FAST FOOD meal review.
I love this movie. It has, quite literally, everything a good horror/suspense/thriller/… what have you… movie should have. Twist plots and drastic turns, scares and thrills a plenty, a good, and somehow, believable ghost story, horror, terror, and not too mention a thrilling, blood curdling "creep factor" that goes way beyond its pedantic PG-13 rating. This movie is intelligent, well written, engaging, extremely well acted, well directed, and all around… good. Naomi Watts is wonderful as are the performances of Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Coxx, and Amber Tamblyn who is both unguarded and honest. Gore Verbinski's direction is smooth and superb, with truly some of the most chilling images I have witnessed in a very long time. Also, I should comment on the amazing score by composer, Hans Zimmer, which completely compounds and buffers the haunting, frightening feel to this wonderful chilling film.
Of special note: the reviews of this movie when it first came out were very misleading. I think it was one reason my mother was not impressed with the film. It was touted as being as scary as The Exorcist, or even being the scariest movie of the decade. I would challenge and argue those viewpoints. The Ring is not the scariest movie ever made. I leave that honor to films like Alien, and Jaws, and The Thing. No. What The Ring is, and what it succeeds brilliantly at being, is a well thought out, well wrought murder mystery. It has the kind of panache and aplomb that a good Stephen King or Peter Straub novel has, with a healthy dose of ghostly influence. It is wonderfully unnerving, excitingly disconcerting, and the cold and wet dread that skulks through the entire film is like some unnatural phantom skulking the dimly lit halls and scream infested rooms of a dark and twisted insane asylum.
What The Ring is not, is the scariest movie ever made.
If you see it knowing the aforementioned fact you will undoubtedly, writers honor, be pleasantly surprised and, for lack of a better word, delightfully wigged out.
|
|
