The Ring
starring Naomi Watts, Martin Henderseon, David Dorfman, Richard Lineback and Daveigh Chase
written by Ehren Kruger
directed by Gore Verbinski
I looked forward to seeing this movie because it was talked about so much when it came out in movie theaters last year. Now I have seen it and I am satisfied. I watched the original Japanese movie of the same title, and while I was watching the American movie on video with my wife and daughter I was often distracted by their complaining shouts, “That’s different!” “That’s not the same as in the real movie.”
I tried to point out to them that any discrepancy between the American Ring and the Japanese Ring might be accounted for by the fact that the American movie is based on the novel of the same title by Koji Suzuki and not on the Japanese film itself. But it is hard for me to tell because I have not read the novel - yet - and my Japanese is too weak to understand much more than the gist, or the story line of the original.
One thing is correct, though. The Ring is not really that scary. It remains a good story. But I thought it could have been scarier. I think Japanese are highly emotional, really not inscrutable like what racial stereotypes once described, and they like a good scare as well as a good cry. (Consider the popularity of haunted mansions, or obakeiyashiki at summer and school festivals.) But the Japanese Ring was not stark raving scary, I thought. Neither was the American Ring. To me the Japanese film felt too much like it was following a form defined as “horror movie” (regardless of whether or not it was really spine chilling), and that the actors were always holding back, while the American film felt too much like a copy of something (which it is). So all-in-all it was a good film with some scary moments. But not enough to give a person nightmares. That is what I want form a horror movie. I want nightmares to prove to myself that I am really alive.