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'Rings’ struggles to live up to horror series’ legacy
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A still from Rings. (Paramount Pictures/File)
T
he 118-minute follow-up to the previous two instalments of the famous horror franchise, The Ring, proves to be quite predictable. Despite the 13-year gap between The Ring 2 and Rings, the latter lacks innovation on building suspense.
Inspired by the 1998 Japanese horror movie Ringu, F. Javier Gutiérrez’ Rings weaves in the same old spooky tape in its course; but this time around, there is an upgrade from a video cassette to a digital file on a USB drive. The spirit of Samara, the girl pushed into a well by her mother, has also slightly modified its modus operandi and now kills people who view the tape and fail to show it to another person within a week; those who obey however, get to commute their death sentence at the expense of the people they show the video to.
Aside from those changes in the curse, the “video-that-kills-you” features extra footage that includes more vague, flickering images. Among them are a flood, a dead bird, a lady on the side of the road, a crucifix made of cicadas and a snake swallowing itself. But, too much emphasis given to these additions distracts from the plot of the film.
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The movie features Gabriel (Johnny Galecki), a college professor who inherits the old-school Ring tape, watches it and then decides to explore the nature of the human soul through the video. In the midst of the experiment, Gabriel selfishly shows it to a bunch of his students, putting their lives on the line and allowing him to live a little longer. One of the students falling victim to Gabriel’s study is Holt (Alex Roe), a freshman who left his high school sweetheart Julia (Matilda Lutz) back in his hometown to attend college. One night, Julia has a perturbing Skype call with Holt and decides to drive to Spokane to figure out what is happening on his end— but not long after, Julia, too, is ensnared in the mess. Holt and Julia subsequently try to break Samara’s curse to stop her from harming those who have watched the video. In doing so, they unearth information regarding her death, as they travel to the place she once lived in.
One of the concluding scenes, where Julia is almost killed by the blind guard of Sacrament Valley (Vincent D’Onofrio) – who happens to be Samara’s biological father – makes Rings seem more like a thriller than a horror movie.
All in all, the movie barely manages to keep its audience on the edge of their seats, because of its generic jump scares. The sequel makes use of the same techniques as its predecessors and does not offer uniqueness in any of its scenes. Although the movie does try to realign its elements with modern tastes, it still comes off as a forced attempt at the horror genre. (nik/kes)
