Review of Ring

Introduction

If you read my column then you might remember that just before Hallowe`en last year I wrote a column bemoaning the lack of really scary films. Then along comes "Ring", which is plastered with encouraging quotes - "Makes the Blair Witch Project seem like a stroll in the woods", "See it if you dare", "Will scare the living hell out of you", "Something to scream about", "Knuckle-biting terror" and "One of the best horror movies in years...just don`t watch it alone".

Lots of quotes, and lots of praise was heaped on it by ordinary members of the public as well as critics. I don`t want to believe all of the hype, but maybe we do finally have that scary film...

Video

A 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer which is good but not great. Some scenes are absolutely covered with dirt, dust, flecks and scratches. Even though it`s only a few years old the print doesn`t seem to have aged well. There`s some grain evident during certain scenes (some is intentional though). There are a lot of dark scenes here, which is obviously intentional, but some do seem to be too dark.

There`s also a burned in subtitle track - the subtitles are clear and readable for the most part, but there are a few scenes where they are placed over something white (e.g. a lampshade) making them more difficult to read!

Audio

A Japanese DD2.0 stereo soundtrack which sounds ok for the most part although there is some hiss at various points. If you play it in a surround mode on a home cinema amp then you`ll find one or two good sound effects moving around.

The soundtrack is very minimalist, concentrating mostly on a few evil sounding chords and just some more sinister sounds in general. An interesting idea, but it didn`t quite come off all of the time.

Features

A few extra features on offer here too. You get some trailers (don`t watch them before the film) for Ring and Ring 2, plus another Japanese film that looks equally bizarre.

There`s also a text-based review by Mark Kermode, a brief stills gallery (not much of excitement in there though), plus a few cast and crew bios.

You`ll also be able to watch the video that the characters watch in the film, as long as you agree to the disclaimer first (there`s another disclaimer on the back cover).

Conclusion

I was really looking forward to this. I had high expectations. It seemed that the quest for a good horror film would finally be at an end.

But I`m afraid that the quest goes on. Ring wasn`t really all that scary. The story was like a long episode of The X Files, and there are some very bizarre goings on. But it didn`t "scare the living hell" out of me, nor was it "knuckle-biting terror".

It just felt like a bizarre film that you expect to find late at night on Channel 4. The film is very slow paced and never seems to get higher than about second gear. I tried hard to like it, but in the end the film just couldn`t cut it.

The picture is ok if you can see past all of the blemishes, and the sound is ok too. The extras don`t really add anything to the package. If you like horror then this might just be worth a rental. It`s probably unlike anything that you`ve seen, but you might just like it more than me.