
Sun Sentinel

Movie review, 'The Ring'

Tribune staff reporter

The best horror films can knock the wind out of you. They seep into your skin and make you suck in the same stale air as their characters when something as simple as a flashlight goes out in a dark attic. Too few thrillers do this, and even fewer appeal to your intelligence. But here's a horror film that breaks the recent horror cinematic dry spell.

Gore Verbinski's "The Ring" is a pulse-pounding, white-knuckle chiller based on the 1998 Japanese cult hit "Ringu."

Verbinski conjures up the kinetic tension missing from his previous effort, the ambitious but flat "The Mexican," with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. This time he teams with rising star Naomi Watts ("Mulholland Drive"), who plays Rachel Keller, a journalist whose niece dies seven days after watching a cryptic videotape.

Following her reporter's instincts, but apparently not common sense, Rachel finds the tape and watches it - giving herself and those she's exposed to the tape a week to discover its dark origin.

Meshing together the best parts of the 1950 noir film "D.O.A." and David Cronenberg's disturbing "Videodrome," Verbinski keeps us engaged in the chase, providing suspense-thriller momentum in a genre where audiences are too often left waiting for the next "boo!"

"The Ring" ends up a few frames short of the perfect horror film, but very few. Verbinski could have showed less and could have ended his movie any time during its last 10 minutes, but even his penchant for explaining too much won't keep audiences from talking about this film long after the credits roll. Even if parts don't hold up in the daylight, the chill will stick to your bones.

3 stars (out of 4) "The Ring"
Directed by Gore Verbinski; written by Ehren Kruger, based on a novel by Koji Suzuki; A DreamWorks release; opens Friday, Oct. 18. Running time: 1:45. MPAA rating: PG-13 (thematic elements, disturbing images, language and some drug references).
Rachel - Naomi Watts
Noah - Martin Henderson
Aidan - David Dorfman
Richard - Brian Cox
Dr. Grasnik - Jane Alexander
Ruth - Lindsay Frost
Katie - Amber Tamblyn
Becca - Rachael Bella Robert K. Elder is a Tribune staff writer.

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