The Ring is a 2002 psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski. The film is a remake of the Japanese horror 'Ring,' which was made in 1998. The film based on a Japanese folk tale called Banchō Sarayashiki. This is a ghost story of love separated by social class, broken trust, promises, leading to a dismal fate. The film was also adapted from the novel 'Ring,' by Kōji Suzuki.
The film beginnings with an establishing shot of a house at night, it is stormy outside and raining. We see two girls, Katie and Becca, both of which are teenage schoolgirls. Becca tells Katie of a story that she heard of that when you watch a video tape, it kills people. As Becca tells Katie this the camera slowly zooms into Becca building up tension. Katie panics as she watched the film at the weekend with her boyfriend Josh. Becca explains that after they watch the tape the phone rings and you then have 7 days to live. Katie messes about with Becca and pretends to choke and die on her lap. The phone then rings and the camera quickly zooms onto the clock in the room which shows that it is 10pm. There is a mass amount of tension when Becca and Katie go to answer the phone, Becca messes about acting all scared and hands the phone over to Katie as it's her Mum. These types of films always give you some suspense and then leave you hanging with something that isn't scary. As Katie is on the phone Becca seems to disappear. Katie goes round looking for Becca through the dark house, and we hear distortion noises and the TV turns on. There is then a slow pan around a wall to show the TV. It turns itself on and off, Katie walk back into the kitchen to see the fridge opening. At this point there is no background music apart from a few chimes, setting you up for a thrill. Katie then hears loud footsteps running up the stairs, so she runs up after thinking it's Becca. There is then a low angle shot of the bedroom door with water pouring through the gap at the bottom, she opens the door and there is no water in the room. As she looks up she looks at the TV and he camera the zooms into her screaming with a disturbing face. (Featured below) This then goes into a video montage showing different parts of what seems to be part of the video. (Featured below). In the video we see many enigma's that we assume will be explained during the film.
We then cut to a teachers evening, where the teacher show his mother images of what Aidan (her son) has been drawing. The images are quite disturbing for a little child as they are very dark and mysterious. We find out that Aidan was very good friends with Katie, and his Mum Rachel assumes that he has been drawing them after her death, when it really was done the week before. When they get back home, Aidan insists that he knows the time of death of Katie, and we find out that is was 10pm.
At Katie's wake, we hear Rachel and Katie's mum Ruth discussing how the cause of Katie's death is unknown. Ruth doesn't believe that her heart just stopped and believes that something more disturbing happened. This then cuts to a quick shot of Katie sitting in a wardrobe looking all decayed.
Rachel then goes outside for a cigarette and see's some of Katie's friends, who bring up the videotape story and that Josh's boyfriend also died on the same night. We then cut to Aidan who starts to walk up the stairs to where Katie died. He walks into the room towards the TV, when suddenly the TV ripples and Rachel is behind him. She tells Aidan to go downstairs as she stays up there. Rachel has a look around the room and sees photos of model's with their faces all scribbled out. Underneath these images there is a phone number and address for a local photo development shop. Rachel goes and collects the photos to see that Katie had been away with friends and Josh at the weekend, and that all the photos were normal until the last one, where they're faces were all distorted, and looked as if they had been smudged.There is then another shot of the clock which emphasises the time as it is 10pm, the same time Katie died.
The next shot is an aerial shot taken from a helicopter, of a car driving, again the mise en scene shows us that she is going to a dark place as it is raining and gloomy, giving a creepy and unsteady atmosphere. The helicopter camera pans with the car until it reaches Shelter Mountain, where the cabin Katie and her friends were staying at. This type of shot was never used in Frankenstein or The Devil Rides Out, as hiring a helicopter would've been too expensive. This shows the development in the genre. Rachel goes into the main office of the cabin's and asks about the teenagers. She finds that they were staying in Cabin 12, and that they rented a video. She looks over at the video stand and see's that they are all packaged correctly apart from one which has no case and is tilted onto it's side. This small bit of detail has made a great impact on the video and already given it a suspicious look. Rachel goes to Cabin 12, which is situated in the woodlands where it s very dark and secluded. The cabin itself looks very old and looks unstable.
Rachel gets into the cabin and puts the video on, she sits and watches it .This is the same video that we have seen small snippets of previously when Katie was killed. The film is all in black and white and uses very high pitched squeals that are painful to hear. At this point the main emphasis on the video is the ring, a chair that spins around, a woman in a mirror, and sounds of drowning, and also a tree which was shown before Rachel went into the cabin. The video also features a lot of water telling the audience that the main theme of this video is water . After the video finishes the phone rings, and '7 Days,' is said by a child.
The film then cuts to a shot with writing which has been edited on top saying Thursday - Day 1, and again it is raining. Rachel takes a photo of herself, and finds that her face is also distorted on all of her photos. At this point a man called Noah is introduced, and he gets shown the video. We do not know what relation Noah is to Rachel. After Noah watches the video the phone rings again, afraid to answer it she leaves it and a close up shot is shown of there being no voice mail. After Noah leaves, Rachel goes back to the phone where there is one message, she reluctantly presses the button and we see a close up of Rachel's face looking worried, and the film cuts to the next scene. Rachel then goes to copy the film and whilst doing so, the numbers on the copier keep misreading. She also discovers that something is being thrown from the tree.
Not a lot happens on Friday - Day 2, only that she thinks she see's the ladder that's been used in the video, only to find that it's a man painting.
Saturday - Day 3. Rachel visits Becca in a mental clinic, there are many pans of the wards that house mainly elderly patients and Becca seems to be the youngest there. Rachel and Becca then talk to each other and Becca says nothing, until Rachel reaches out and holds her hand. Becca says that Katie will show you how she died. Becca also knows that Rachel has only 4 days. Rachel leaved the clinic to look at the video again. She alters with the tape to the part where she saw something coming from the trees. There are numerous cuts back and forth from Rachel to the screen as she alters the video. There is a close up on the screen and there is a fly with it's wings twitching. She takes it off the screen, and it disappears from the video, Rachel turns around and finds that she has a nosebleed.
Sunday - Day 4. On the Sunday, Rachel find the lighthouse that's featured in the video on Moesko Island, and in the article it also shows the name of the woman in the video, she's called Anna Morgan. Rachel searches er online, and finds articles about horses, and that many of them died, but leaving an enigma of how they died. Moments later we then see that the horses drowned, and Anna as related in some way to all of them. We then see that Anna jumped of a cliff and killed herself, just is what we saw in the video where a woman in black jumped. As Rachel is writing notes down she realises that she is tarting to scribble out faces like Katie. The majority of this scene is done through close ups, which represents the importance of the scene.
Monday - Day 5 see's Noah at a store, looking into a CCTV camera. He notices that he has a distorted face just like Rachel and the photos of Katie and her friends. Rachel then comes home to the babysitter and the camera goes over the actress, for this they probably used a jig, and to the TV, which has started to distort. The baby sitter leaves, an water starts to come out of the bottom of the TV. There is a close up on the water , and Rachel starts to choke. A close up from a low angle is then used to show Rachel choking and she then pulls out a chord that is used to monitor patients in hospitals. She pulls it out goes to the phone, only to see that the phone is leaking water. Rachel then goes to see Aidan and there is a girl sitting in the middle of the floor in a puddle. There is then a bright flash and Rachel wakes up in bed, knowing that it was all a dream, by she wakes up covered in hand shaped bruises. Suggesting that something has happened to her in her sleep. She walks into the lounge to see Aidan sitting watching the tape, angry and upset she turns the video off but the phone rings.Rachel then rings Noah and we find out that Aidan is Noah's son.
Tuesday - Day 6. There is a video montage of the information Rachel found of Anna and it's slightly faded so we can see an aerial shot of a car driving. This shot also includes a voice over of Rachel and Noah, telling us that they are both in the car. Before Rachel reaches the ferry for Moesko Island, she figures out that you see 'the ring,' before you die. At this moment in time we still don't know what the ring is. As Rachel gets on the ferry, the sea is very rough , it's windy and it's also raining. Again this builds up the mise en scene, giving the island an unwelcoming look.As Rachel is on the ferry, there is a mention of Anna Morgan having a daughter, and that she died. Rachel goes to pet a horse which becomes very agitated. There are a rage of shots showing the horses agitation. Many of them are close ups of the hoofs and face taken at a low angle to make the horse look more powerful. CGI is used when the horse escapes, and for a modern day film the CGI isn't very good. You can easily tell that the horse has been inputted into the film rather than filmed on location.
The horse then runs off the ferry into the sea, and it is then killed by the propellers underneath the boat. Blood comes out from the boat, and this shows a part of the video. At this point we cut back to Noah, who is at the mental hospital looking for Anna Morgan's old room and files. As he gets to the room there is a fly on the door, and inside the room is full of records and files. Leaving us with an enigma, we cut back to an aerial shot of Rachel's car. Before that though the shot takes us over the lighthouse and to the road giving us an establishing shot of where she is. This is then followed by a series of panned shots showing us Rachel's direction. Rachel arrives at an old house, looks in the window, and there is a reflection. This leaves room for a sudden fright, but the tension stays on as nothing happens. There is then a very high pitched piano note as Rachel looks around the house, again building up even more tension. She turns around to see Anna Morgan's husband standing there. He talks to her about how many of the horses drowned, and as she's dong this, she see's the mirror used in the video. The house is very dark which again like most of the locations used in this film, gives an eerie feeling. Morgan's husband then tells Rachel that he does not breed horses anymore because of what happened. Rachel gets the video out and asks Morgan's husband about it. You can see in his eyes that he knows all about the video but is just choosing not to say anything. He also says that he doesn't have a daughter. This give you the enigma that he may have had something to do with his wife and his daughters deaths. Rachel walks out of the house not having any answers, and see's a rope swing tied to a tree. Something the husband wouldn't have unless he had a child. Rachel looks to some of the pictures that Aidan had drawn, and there is a rope swing on the picture, telling her that this house definitely has something to do with their deaths and the video. Back then cut back to Noah in the storage room, and he finds Anna Morgan's file. In these notes we see that Anna had suffered many miscarriages and also gave birth to a daughter named Samara. As Noah finds this out he starts to get a nosebleed, just as Rachel did, showing that the 7 day process has started.
We then cut back to Aidan who is at home and he has started to draw very disturbing images of black holes, just like a ring. He says that the little girl show's him things. Rachel then goes to talk to a woman on the island about the Morgan's, and there is a boy sitting on an old rusty roundabout. Because of it's age, the roundabout makes a screechy high pitch noise that sends shivers down your spine and is uncomfortable to hear, making the story of the Morgan's sound worse and menacing.
The transitions in the film are usually parts of the video that are either connected to the next scene, or part of something that will happen later on in the film. Noah looks in the Morgan's file and see's that the video has gone, and the last person to see it was the husband, Richard Morgan. At night, Rachel goes back to the house, and background music comes in. She goes back to the room with the mirror in, and also goes to the TV. As she's looking she finds a box full of hospital chords, like the one she choked up before. As she is looking through the chords and the papers in there, a centipede crawls out (something else which was in the video). Rachel finds another tape and watches it. The tape shows footage of Samara in her hospital room, and in an interview at the hospital. She also draws pictures just like Aidan is doing. There is then a slow zoom into Rachel's faces as she watches the tape, to build tension. Everything at this point seems calm, until Samara says that her Daddy will leave her and he wants to get away. At this point we see a shot of Rachel, but with the silhouette of Richard in the background. Richard then hits Rachel and gets lead upstairs by Richard who is covered in cables. They walk into the bathroom which has water overflowing, and machines attached everywhere. Richard then electrocutes himself, and as this happens we see sparks flying everywhere, created by SFX. Blood also gets splashed about, and there seems to be some handheld camera work in the bath to really give detail.
Noah then arrives at the house, an grabs hold of Rachel. They open up the stable at the Morgan household, and see the ladder from the video. There is a long pan upwards to the room at the top of the ladder. In the room, there is a rocking horses, dolls everything that would be in a child's bedroom, there is also baby music playing from one of Samara's ornaments. The only 'luxury, item she has in there is a TV. In the reflection of the TV you see the chair used in the video. As Noah is looking round he see's a gap in the wall with flaked wallpaper. They pull back the wallpaper to see a carving of a tree. The same tree that was outside Cabin 12 on Shelter Mountain.
Wednesday - Day 7. Noah and Rachel arrive back at Cabin 12 at Shelter Mountain, they fight and knock off some marbles onto the floor, which magnatise at a point on the floor. Underneath they discover the well from the video. Rachel and Noah jump down, and there is then a pan down into the bottom of the well, showing how deep it is. Whilst Rachel and Noah are looking at the well, the TV above them starts to flicker, and water comes out from the bottom of it. The nails holding the floorboards in place also come up, and there is a bug on one of the nails. SFX and CGI is then used when the floorboards cave in, creating a lot of SFX work and also CGI when the TV falls and knocks Rachel into the bottom of the well.
As she falls, flies come out of the bottom of the well, looking like the flies you see when there's a dead body somewhere. As this happens the TV turns off again. Noah, still being at the side of the well shouts down to Rachel, who sees nail scratches on the well, and also a whole nail in the brick, suggesting that Samara was still alive when she died. The stone that covered the well starts to close over again and we then have a shot above the well and Noah has disappeared, and the TV starts up again. There is then a few odd noises and then silence, and there is then a bright light.
The is then a flashback back to the video, and it shows the remainder of the video, which is how Samara died. We see that her mother smothered her and pushed her down the well. Samara then opens her eyes at the bottom of the well and we see 'the ring,' which is the stone covering back up the well. Proving that she was still alive when she was pushed down, hence the scratch marks. It then cuts back to Rachel who starts to look around and dive down to look for Samara's body.
Rachel holds Samara in her hands, and after she says a few words about how sorry she was, Samara decays in her arms. This is all we see at this point and we think the stories over. Noah then appears again and rings the Police. When the Police arrive and get Rachel out, there is a romantic scene between Rachel and Noah, who we know have a previous history.
There is then a fade out into a shot of Aidan sleeping, and Rachel gets into the shower. As we previously thought that the end of the film was between Rachel and Noah, we are again set up for something scary to happen. As Rachel's in the shower the use of water comes up again which is a daunting thought. Rachel gets into bed with Aidan and wake up later. Rachel says to Aidan that Samara is no longer in a dark place. Adian then says, 'You weren't supposed to help her, she never sleeps.' As he says this Rachel checks his arms, he is covered in bruises, and he also starts to have a nosebleed. As this is happening, we change location to Noah's appartment where the TV turns on. Noah walks up to it and it turns off. Walking away from it, it starts up again. The tape then shows up towards the end where we see a shot of the well, from the outside. The phone then rings and at first we think that this is just like before and Noah's going to get a creepy phonecall. Instead it is actually Rachel trying to tell him about the girl. Samara then starts to get out of the well and towards the screen.
Rachel then drives to Noah, and this is an in-car shot of Rachel who is speeding through to get to Noah. The TV then starts to pour out water again, and Samara crawls out of the TV.
The SFX team brought Samara out the TV, in the same colour she was seen as in the TV, show she was a dingy grey colour rather than making her in colour. Samara then kills Noah and he see's the ring before he dies. We then cut to Rachel who walks into the room. Samara has gone, the TV is flickering and she turns a chair around and there is a close up of Rachel screaming. We don't see Noah's face. Rachel then burns the tape, she then turns around and there is some tension as we think Samrara's come for her. The camera then pans down under the TV, and there is a copy of the tape on the floor. As Rachel is walking out, Noah's girlfriend walks into the appartment and we see Noah's face, and it's just like Katie's.
Rachel then makes Aidan create a copy of the film, as she figured that if you make a copy of the tape you won't die. The film then fades out, and we are left to guess about Samara. This also hints about a sequel being made.
The Ring was branded a PG-13 in America, and a 15 in the UK. Both of which for its high violence and gore count, and also the talk of drugs. The BBFC stated that it was put as a 15, because of it's strong menace and moderate horror.
The Ring was produced by Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. DreamWorks Pictures is an American film studio which develops, produces and distributes films. As well as video games and TV programmes. DreamWorks is best known for, 'Saving Private Ryan,' 'Chicken Run,' and also co-producing Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe nominee 'War Horse.' The Ring is copyrighted to DreamWorks.
