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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Dreamworks Video
Salesrank: 153538
Released: March 8, 2005 |
| Our Price: $10.88 |
| Used Price: $9.95 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Disturbing images and a few good shocks don't stop The Ring from being a hash of half-baked ideas. It's the kind of frightfest you'll watch to set a chilling mood or spook your susceptible friends, but when you try to sort it out, this well-mounted American remake (of the 1998 Japanese hit Ringu, based on Koji Suzuki's popular novel) collapses into a heap of incoherent parts. The negligible plot follows a Seattle reporter (Naomi Watts) as she investigates the death of her niece, the victim of a mysterious videotape that, according to vague urban legend, causes the viewer's death seven days later. (Fear Dot Com borrowed the same idea while avoiding this film's lofty pretensions.) The reporter, her son, and her estranged boyfriend view the tape, and the film's countdown structure follows them into deepening layers of terror--all quite effective until the movie attempts to explain itself. At that you're better off shutting down your brain and letting the creepy visuals take over. --Jeff Shannon
The Ring - Collector's Set (Full Screen Edition) Reviews:
creepy 
2009-12-08 - I saw this movie a long time ago, and several times since then. I have also seen the Japanese version and while some purists and those that fancy themselves non mainstream film buffs will tell you the foreign versions are always better i find that usually isnt the case. The US version of this was just as creepy to me and overall I didnt find the movie to be that scary with the exception of one scene.
There is just this overriding sense of dread throughout the whle film. The sets are dark and so is the script, you are just never in a safe place and every scene is very creepy. I enjoyed this the first time very much but it seems to lose its luster with repeated viewings.
Good Urban Legend 
2009-11-10 - Creepy, not too gory, great suspense. Naomi Watts is tortured by Samara in this movie. Keeps your attention and you will watch it more than once as you will see things you missed the first go around
Outstanding, Haunting And Shocking Horror 
2009-09-30 - Remakes of Asian horror movies have been a bit of a mixed bag. They're almost always at least good, but many times a fair bit behind the original versions. 'The Ring', the movie that started the trend, is actually one of the ones that exceeds its predecessor. It keeps everything that made Ringu good, but benefits from some added angles, better special effects, and deeper characterization on some of the supporting players. Also, it's not a shot-by-shot remake: in several instances backstory elements have been substitued for an alternate take on things. In this case, both the original and the remake had equally cool takes on the backstory. But I've always felt that if you're going to do a remake you just have to do Some things differently so it actually Is a different take on the same idea, not just a reshooting of the exact same movie. The Ring differentiated itself enough so that you'll want to watch both versions, and enjoy not only the same theme but the differences here and there. [Note - there's also a third version, The Ring Virus, a Korean remake of Ringu that came out, I believe, before the American remake. I've really got to get on the ball and see that one too.)
The basic premise behind The Ring is now one of the best known set-ups in horror: there's a videotape out there, of unknown origin, and everyone who watches it dies exactly seven days later. In addition, immediately after watching the tape, the viewer receives a phone call as a warning of their fate. You never hear exactly what's said on the call, but you can just make out enough of it that, by that and the reaction of the person receiving the call (this is one of the things that really made The Ring so great - the tremendous jobs various performers did in reacting to things that aren't fully shown on screen) it really brings an instant air of sinister otherworldliness. Naomi Watts plays the reporter who investigates this strange urban legend after four kids die after watching the tape - one of them her niece - and eventually comes into possession of the tape itself. Totally disbelieving of any truth to the supernatural legend, she nonetheless watches the tape, looking for possible clues. And proceeds to receive the phone call that all viewers are said to receive. It quickly becomes impossible to discount anything about the legend, and worse still, Watts is horrified to get up one morning and find her young son Aidan (David Dorfman) innocently watching the video he found. Now it's a race against time to track down the origins of the tape and try to stop the curse before it reaches its fated conclusion. The trail leads to the story of a little girl named Samara (Daveigh Chase), now dead several years...
The Ring is a multi-layered horror story that gets scarier and scarier as it unfolds, riveting from the start but leaving the biggest and most memorable frights for the end stages. The visual imagery of The Ring has become iconic in horrordom, including the stone well, first seen on the videotape itself, and the climax is a masterpiece. Outstanding performances all around. This is a horror must-have.
The Ring is the BEST scary movie - EVER!!!
2009-09-14 - I LOVE this movie. Scary but not over-the-top with gore and not a slasher movie (which are okay in their own right). Really great plot to follow. If you like scary movies that keep you on the edge of your seat with suspense, this is one to watch!
Best since Psycho and The Exorcist
2009-08-25 - I walked into this movie totally blank...that is, I started watching this having no idea what the heck the film was about. It starts off being what I thought to be a typical killer stalks kids kind of a thing. Some kids watch a video and end up a few days later disfigured and dead. If you know nothing about the movie and like scary flicks, don't finish reading this review and never read any review. Just watch the thing alone and at night...at 2 in the morning would be good.
I thought this movie ranks up there with The Exorcist and Psycho. This is truly a horror classic. Now, that being said, I've seen reviews in which people have felt it being "a typical horror movie" and not all that scary. Of course, I also know people that thought The Exorcist was campy and good for a laugh. For me, though, there was tension through out the whole movie, which kept building and building, and I nearly wet myself during THE scene.
I'll admit I happened to watch this thing at about 2 in the morning and was, as I stated, unaware of the good reviews this thing had. Certainly the shock of a good movie that I just happened across always makes a good movie that much better but, in the end, you have to praise a good movie for just being good.
Folks, this is a top ten classic horror flick. It's that simple.
