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 the room or hiding and you wouldn’t notice because the camera doesn’t view the whole room. I think the main question raised is who’s going to die or who is going to survive.
Rachel is the “final girl” as she is the one who discovers how to prevent the results of a terrible ordeal. The “final girl” is someone who survives and ends up by herself or with her child (Aiden). The “final girl” is also the one who solves the mystery, but ends up killing someone else though who is fairly close to her. She discovers that you need to make a copy of the tape to survive. From the start you can predict that Rachel or Aiden will survive and sure enough they do. In my opinion Rachel is the main character, therefore usually in most movies the main character survives, but Rachel seems very innocent throughout the film especially when she watches the tape. This is when you begin to worry for her. Even though Rachel is the main character, if it were a real situation, I think she would survive because she’s got a strong character. She doesn’t give up easily, she is determined and takes risks when she needs to, so in other words she is not afraid to get her hands dirty. She didn’t have to travel to see the doctor or Samara’s Dad but she did, because she had her heart set on finding out what was going on with the tape. She went in the rain, cold and even left her son to investigate.
The main quest is obvious, to stop Samara killing everyone. Also Rachel has some personal goals: the main personal goal is to save herself and her son and figure out what happened to her niece and her three friends, who mysteriously died at the same time and of the same cause, Shock!! Her investigation leads her to the mountains and to some log cabins that her niece and friends stayed in. This is where she also views the killer tape, this is when her priorities should change to saving her life, but unbeknown to her she has seven days to live or seven days to make a copy of it. Then she tries to figure out how, who and why the terrible video was created.
Her enquiry gradually unravels and she then develops a film from a camera that her niece had with her whilst in the mountains. To her surprise all the faces on the photos, after the night of the viewing of the tape appear to be distorted. This puzzles Rachel and she wonders whether this could be one of the affects of the tape. As she has seen the tape, she takes a photo of herself, she too has a distorted face on the camera. By this time she knows her fate, but Rachel being Rachel is determined to prevent it. Without thinking she makes a copy of the video for her ex-husband Noah who is a video expert to see what he can come up with. Unbeknown to her this is the only way to survive Samara’s tape. She’s sitting in bed thinking about why the tape was made when she hears the familiar sounds of the tape, then realises that it’s coming from her television. She runs in to find her son Aiden watching the tape. This scares her, but just makes her more determined to solve the mystery of the tape. She becomes somewhat side tracked by Noah who she again begins to have a fondness of, they decide to team up and try and solve the case together. Aiden also plays a large part in solving the mystery with his drawings that depict the events of about a week ahead of time. Once they get a small lead they just keep on unveiling the story of the mysterious tape. They eventually discover what’s going on with Samara. Rachel has achieved her main goal now. She must save her son before his seven days is up.
Mainly the plot builds up the rhythm of suspense/shock and resolution but the music also helps the rhythm. The strange music and the eerie silences are used to create this effect. Sometimes a series of events can lead to suspense, or something happens totally out of the blue and scares you as well. At the funeral Aiden decides to venture up the stairs to Katie’s room to see whether she has left anything for him in her room. The camera follows him to the bottom of the stairs and when he begins to climb the stairs the camera moves round to the side of the stairs and watches him climb the stairs side on. This makes it look like some sort of ceremony or march up the stairs. When he reaches the top of the stairs the camera moves to the end of the landing, when this happens the banisters reflect onto the floor and this gives you the impression that there is a walkway up to Katie’s room. When Aiden sticks his head around the door to see into the room the camera focuses on what he will see. This makes you feel as though you are really there behind Aiden looking into the room. In the movie “The Ring” there are some parts of resolution and some things left a total mystery. They unravel that Samara’s supposed Mum killed Samara because she was adopted and could not love her as she was not her own child, also bad things had happened on the island since she was brought back with her foster parents.
The ghostly scenes throughout the movie are essential in setting the tone of fear and horror. Throughout the movie there are some moments of shock. An example of this is when Rachel is in the bottom of the well and Samara’s hand comes out of the water and grabs her arm. In this scene the camera is looking square across the bottom of the well and occasionally moves so that it looks directly down the well. This makes you feel like you are in the well with Rachel and you have just experienced the same thing. Also in the movie it likes to frighten you slowly, like some of the visuals that look normal, but aren’t. Aiden’s disturbing drawings also build uncertainty and you aren’t sure what to think about him, maybe he has some connection with the girl.
The lurking points of the view shots are when you feel as though you are either following behind them or you are standing watching there every move. These kinds of view shots build suspense because it makes you feel as if you’re really there and in your head you are trying to make sense of what’s going on, also you are trying to tell the person what to do. The lurking point is simply that someone is watching what he or she is doing. This is good because it gets you involved in the movie. Some people, whilst watching the movie shout at the television screen telling them what to do. It also makes you think what you would do in that situation.
The film explores “techno phobia” as the movie shows how wonderful things technology can do or not so wonderful things as in the tape in “The Ring”. It also shows how one small thing like a videotape can put some much fear into us. Adding to this it shows how the people in the movie felt controlled by this simple but deadly piece of technology. It also shows how technology can play tricks on our minds. In the killer video you see a mirror straight on and you can’t see the reflection of the camera or cameraman in the reflection. If you have techno phobia I would not recommend that you watch “The Ring”. I wouldn’t recommend that you watch “The Ring” if you have techno phobia because you may think that something like this really exists and get unsure of what’s going to happen. Samara uses technology to get her revenge in the means of a video.
The story does contain some revenge in it. I think that Samara is the only one who wants revenge on her killer. As she doesn’t know who killed her, she wants revenge on mankind. She gets the revenge she wants by means of a killer tape, which kills innocent people who watch the tape. She does this because she was an innocent child who was killed by her foster parents. Samara’s thinking is “If I was killed for no reason, then I will kill others for no reason.” Samara made the tape to let people know how she felt and how she was treated. Also to let people know that she is down there in the well. The tape she made to get her revenge with is a series of visions she had before she died.
The film touches on the subject of broken families, which involves Rachel, Aiden and Noah, so pretty much the main characters. Rachel and Noah had Aiden when they were together, but then they split up. At one point in the film Aiden and Noah are talking about their relationship as father and son. Aiden doesn’t want a father and Noah’s not been a father to him because he was worried he would be an inadequate father, so didn’t want to get involved. But later in the film Aiden shows joy when his parents seem to begin to reunite. Near the end of the film Rachel and Noah kiss and hold hands. Things start to look up but then Samara kills Noah as his seven days are up.
The film is not totally resolved, they discover what happened to Samara. They also discover how to survive a viewing of the tape. The main goal to stop the tape is not resolved, Samara lives on and continues to put others through her terrible ordeal. Nicely pointed out by Aiden at the end “she never sleeps.” At the end they are unsure what will happen to the next person who views the tape, it may be exactly the same or worse, because someone has tried to help her. All she wants to do is kill people and someone was trying to stop her from fulfilling this need. This would make her mad.
Conclusion
The main reason that “Ringu” was so successful is that the turn of the century was a particularly hard time for Japan. The director of “Ringu” stated that Japan had seen some very violent and bad things happening in the Japanese society, like the Aum Doomsday cult and the insurance killing incident, where people killed themselves for money.
Hit by a period of time when trade was bad, the technology market crashed. Also increased unemployment and an apparent dreary future. Japan was more than ready for a horror/ghost story that combined modern technology like the video and phone call and urban myths.
What made “The Ring” such a success was that nothing like this had been done before apart from its true origin “Ringu”. The movie had the ability to give you a sense of dread and mystery, even when nothing supernatural is really happening. In some movies there is a “spoon fed plot” which is a plot that tells you everything and you are not left to work anything out it’s all given to you, but, in “The Ring” they slowly reveal the plot behind the killer tape allowing your imagination to anticipate the next sequence of events. In the movie there are scenes that are simple but have a great effect, like the girl brushing her hair in the mirror and a television turning itself on this also links back to the techno phobia, which this film exploits very intently. The movie even has time to scare you with some spine-chilling moments. Also on most of the flashbacks the footage contains a green background and the objects in the flashback are grainy, black and white images. In the movie you are always guessing what will happen next as the storyline is revealed piece by piece. You are guessing right up until the final scene. The movie combines an interesting storyline with an imaginative use of music to build suspense and fear, also the general idea of a killer tape is original. The movie is successful because it has a storyline that is tough to predict apart from the obvious deaths of Katie and Noah. Noah death is less hard to predict, but when he watches the tape you know it curtains then.
In my opinion “The Ring” is one of the best movies of the century so far. I’ve seen it about five times and every time you watch it you remember something different.