Film Buffs: Please explain "The Ring" (Naomi Watts) to me!

[MnFats]

in particular, what the hell was up with that ending?
Pretend I'm real stupid --- I was so so confused.
what was going on there?

[flamingyouth]

1. I'm not sure what you mean

But she and her son don't die because they copy the tape and pass it on (albeit unwittingly).

[neoteric lefty]

2. yeah, it seemed pretty straight forward to me

its been awhile since I have seen it but didn't seem like anything too deep to me. Maybe I missed something :)

[TheWizardOfMudd]

3. It was all about freeing the ghost . . .

. . . and the remains of that little girl.

Naomi freed the spirit. That was a good thing.

[neverborn]

5. No it wasn't!!

It was a good thing for Somarra -- NOT for anyone else.

They copied the tape, so Somarra could make more people see it.

Now that she's outside of the well, she can roam freely -- as the little boy said "She never sleeps."

[MnFats]

8. but the kid said 'you weren't supposed to help her.'

so is the kid off killing lots of people to gain her revenge now?


and why'd the guy electrocute himself?

[Ediacara]

4. Don't bother

The movie was laughably absurd, nearly as bad as the Blair Witch Project.

[neverborn]

6. Wrong on two counts.

[Ediacara]

10. I'm sorry maybe you're talking about a different "The Ring"

The laughably absurd "horror" flick I was refering to used a HAUNTED video image of a stone covered well:



It was contrived, and stupid, and well, not in any way scary or sensicle.

And I stand by my previous assertion, it was nearly as bad as the "Blair Witch Project," which is probably in the bottom 2% of movies I've ever seen.

[theivoryqueen]

7. dang - I WAS going to watch that someday

preferably a deep stormy night... Gotta love the scary movies!

[frylock]

11. watch ringu instead..

the original Japanese version.

[theivoryqueen]

12. hm - was that anime?

[frylock]

16. no. it's live action, subtitled..

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Ringu-1112868/

[SiouxJ]

17. Agreed. A much better film. n/t

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ediacara]

18. Insane am I?

Care to elaborate, or are you limited to guerilla jibings over the internet? Honestly man, I would never call someone mentally deficient for their love of "The Ring," I can't see why you think it's ok to call me insane for my dislike of it....

[DrWeird]

21. Are you one of these people who go see "Van Helsing"?

and like it?

Or think that "Scooby-Doo: The Movie" was a rip roaring good time?

[Ediacara]

22. no...

I thought both were terrible, but believe it or not, they were marginally better than The Ring. They score higher because they don't take themselves so seriously. Van Helsing wasn't supposed to be the pinnicle of monster movies, Scooby Doo wasn't supposed to be the pinnicle of comedy, but The Ring was billed as being the pinnicle of creepy horror movies. In fact, I think some reviewers even claimed it was the rightful heir to The Blair Witch Project. Ironically, they were correct, it IS the heir to that movie's completely absurd and horrible plot that completely lacked anything worth watching.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. The thing I liked was the picture the little boy was drawing in the

beginning... you initially think it depicts the sister who just died, then you realize as the movie goes on what he was really drawing.

[Sapphocrat]

13. Here, MnFats...

If this doesn't explain the whole thing, spoilers and all, nothing will:

http://www.amuseyourself.com/moviespoilers/r.html

Scroll about halfway down the page to "The Ring," and just hold your mouse over the title.

[MnFats]

14. Thanks! A little clearer now!

cool website too.
could waste a lot of time there.....

[Sapphocrat]

23. You're welcome!

And thanks for the kind words. That's the sole purpose of the site -- to "take your mind off your own harrowing life..." It saves my sanity! :)

[FizzFuzz]

19. I really realllllly liked the sound on the evil video.

like a subtle wall of natural noises--frogs and crickets-- set off by a threatening hum running beneath. Brrrr!

I thought the ending indicates that the mother realized the way to save their own skin was to keep showing the video to other people, so in other words, they have now become "evil" in the interest of self-preservation. It was an uncomfortable ending because American films tend toward the sigh-of-relief ending, where the evil is vanquished (well, now that I think about it, that's less true in the age of the sequel; the evil has to survive in order to have material for more movies.) But this felt different in that the two protagonists consciously become a tool in the propagation of the evil force themselves.

[LynneSin]

20. She lived because she made a copy of the tape....

If you break the chain (view and put it back) - you'll die. So she had her son make a copy of the tape so he would survive

[Lisa]

24. pretty slick use of imagery ...

I actually discussed some of this with my art history class last term. Rapidly flashing pictures of items which, on their own, aren't particularly frightening, can have an unsettling effect. Other horror movies have used this kind of technique, but "The Ring" really piled it on. (I have to admit that, after rooming with two people who would have been in absolute HEAVEN if they had been able to sleep in the barn with the horses while growing up, I was a bit distracted from the film's implication that this was one way in which Samara had been mistreated!)

Remembering Japanese folktales while I was growing up, I didn't find it too farfetched that a ghost may not be a rational creature who merely wanted justice and would quit after "the truth" was revealed (traditional Western notion of hauntings). I got the impression from the film that Samara would just keep on messing with people, and there wasn't any way to stop her now that she was out in the world. Coincidentally I had been reading Robert Hare's work on psychopaths around the time I saw "The Ring", and so it occurred to me that Samara might have been a seriously-disturbed child even without the abuse. Exactly the type of person you don't want to be roaming around with otherworldly powers.