Not having been a fan of The Ring (2002) or its sequel, I had no
great hope when Paramount Pictures announced a third entry/reboot was in the
works. Surprisingly, Rings proves to be superior to the two previous movies
what with its streamlined story and eerie atmosphere courtesy of Spanish
director F. Javier Gutierrez. Taking the
premise of the first film, the script from David Loucka, Jacob Estes and Akiva
Goldsman expands on that tale providing a worthy and logical continuation,
finding new life in a concept that was seemingly wrung dry in The Ring 2.
Having left his loyal girlfriend Julia (Matilda Anna Ingrid
Lutz) behind to go off to college, Holt (Alex Roe) finds himself in over his
head when he agrees to help one of his professors (Johnny Galecki) with an
experiment involving a certain supernatural videotape he’s come into possession
of. Yep, he’s taken a look at that
creepy cinematic nightmare from the first two movies and he has seven days to live,
unless he makes a copy of it and gets someone else to watch it. Julia catches wind of this, decides to help
Holt and before you know it, she looks at the video in order to take his place.
This setup is rather pedestrian but the investigation the two
leads embark on in order to find the origins of the tape takes some unexpected
turns that make the backstory of the cursed video richer. Re-watching the centerpiece film is a bracing
reminder of what a haunting, disturbing piece of work it is with its monochrome
images of dead horses, a lone woman plunging to her death, a cryptic lighthouse
and that famous desolate well in the middle of nowhere. Equally effective is
new footage that mysteriously pops up within the original film, including
glimpses of a flooded cemetery, a burning corpse and a mysterious doorway. The cryptic, disturbing tone of the tape
casts a pall over the story and provides understandable motivation for the
characters.
Gutierrez proves to be a master of crafting one unnerving,
atmospheric scene after another, suffusing his shots with shadows as well as a
greyish hue that creates a perpetual sense of doom, an oppressive world that’s
constantly overcast, holding nothing but bad luck for all who live in it. The
filmmaker’s penchant for intrusive camera placement – close shots that inch
nearer and nearer to Julia as death approaches her – effectively increases the
tension. The level of skill on display
helps elevate the material which very easily been done on the cheap.
Strong support is supplied by veteran character actor
Vincent D’Onofrio as a blind priest who gives some key clues as to the origin
of the new footage while Lutz provides a quiet strength to Julia making her a
sympathetic character we can’t help but hope will escape the fate that’s
befallen her.
Films such as this tend to live or die by their
ending and Rings has a doozy, a conclusion that doesn’t feel forced or tacked
on, but one that’s an extension of the movie’s internal logic. Not only does it
provide a plausible way to extend this series but it proves shocking both viscerally
and metaphorically in underscoring how infectious fear can be and how quickly
it can spread. Â
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2017.
