The Ring

The film “The Ring” is about a young girl who is terribly murdered by her unruly mother. The story shows how the young girl gets people to realise how she was killed in a very disturbing way. The main way to show this is to kill them in a similar way, unjustified and terrifying. Also the fact that you feel you have no control over of what’s going to happen to you once you’ve viewed the tape. It took seven days for her to die in the circumstances that she was in. The person who her message gets through to is Rachel, a New York journalist, who enlists the help of her ex-husband Noah, a video expert and her less than normal son Aiden who is also Noah’s son. Her investigations, along with Noah, eventually lead to Noah’s death.

The film is definitely a horror as there is a lot of suspense and uncertainty, this is shown right from the opening sequence when Becca and Katie are talking on the bed disusing a supposed killer tape and the possible outcomes of watching the tape. Then one of the girls admits to viewing a weird tape the previous week, then to shock you one of them acts out what she thinks will happen to you if you watch the tape. When you realise that she is pretending you feel relieved. One of the ideas the girls had about the tape is that the phone rings when this happens the camera zooms in on the phone this makes you unaware of anything going on around the phone. This helps build suspense, this is typical of a horror. Finally after a week of viewing the tape, sure enough, the phone rings. This causes you to panic and worry. This feeling is present in any decent horror movie. When you find out that it is indeed her Mum on the phone, you are glad that the girls are safe, this is often referred to a being relieved.

The traditional ingredients for a horror film are a creepy implied violence and screaming, innocent victims pleading for their lives. Also the approach to the music and the way that the tempo of the music gradually gets quicker and quicker when something big is going to happen and slows down when you begin to feel relived. This to scares you. The outcome of certain characters in the movie plays a large part on keeping you interested and on your toes. In most movies the main threat has some form of advantage over the victim, like in “The Ring”, Samara is definitely going to kill you unless you make a copy of her tape and there is nothing you can do about it. Also the main threat may be unable to be killed and cannot be helped. In the story Rachel tries to help her but this will probably make her madder. The girls at the start of the movie are alone and when the phone rings the music also helps build suspense up until they answer the phone. But totally opposite to this, an eerie silence can worry and make you feel apprehensive. The scene with the two girls is a disaster waiting to happen and you can also predict what’s going to happen, but not how it will happen. This is good because while you are watching it you are trying to predict what is going to happen. You are slightly off guard, so this is when you are most vulnerable to shock.

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Right at the very beginning of the film the camera moves slowly in on the house with a full moon, this immediately sets the scene. A lonely house and it is pitch black, also the camera imitates that someone or something is watching the house and is planning on entering or doing something to the house. You immediately know that something serious is going to happen. The camera focuses on the two girls lying on the bed but when Becca tells the story it focuses only on her face. This gives you the idea that something could be in ...

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