THE RING

Urban legends! A mandatory passage between teenagers and slightly older guys. How many of you have told at least one in your life?... Maybe while camping, around a fire lit under the summer stars, between the desks or in the school bathrooms or simply in front of a girl just to scare her and receive her terrified hug! This is because they are fascinating stories, they run on the thin line that divides reality and fantasy. Who knows how they were born! Our grandparents?... They must have started! Maybe to punish the disobedient grandchildren; or simply real events reported over the years! Certainly, we will never know their origin and the truthfulness of the stories, we can be content with the fantastic side that stimulates our curiosity. Here, the protagonist is the monumental made in USA cinematic world that has sniffed out a deal from Japan transforming their "Ringu" from 1998 into "The Ring" with the usual Hollywood mastery. The project is entrusted to the director Gore Verbinski, born in 1964, already author of famous films like "The Mexican" and "The Curse of the Black Pearl". In "The Ring", the story of a strange videotape with black and white images that seem to have no logic is told. They appear and disappear like flashes stolen from the life of a lady who seems to really look you in the eyes on your TV screen. It seems that whoever watches it receives a phone call with a death omen: "seven days" to start the curse of the circle. Seven days of life that remain to the journalist Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) to reveal the mystery and thus avert her own death and that of the person dearest to her. Engaging start, rich in tension that would make you think of the entire development of the film at heart-pounding, but it is not so because the plot turns almost to become a giallo-thriller with chilling twists that culminate only at the end with the most terrifying scene. Something that, however, had not been seen in years in the now tired and repetitive horror world, a film that slowly gets under your skin and stays in your memories for a long time, even catching you off guard at the cinema and elsewhere. Certainly, a notable contribution to the development of the film is given by the interpretation of the actors, starting from the smallest and excellent David Dorfman (Aidan Keller) whom we will see the following year also in the remake of "Non Aprite Quella Porta" and ending with the greatest (not in age but in skill), the protagonist Naomi Watts ("21 Grammi" and "King Kong"). Male protagonist is Marin Henderson (Noah Clay) seen in "Windtalkers" (2002) and "Torque" (2004). Honestly, I can't fully focus on the flaws of this film (assuming there are any), maybe a bit of confusion about the story, especially the one concerning the second child protagonist (Samara), who should be a demon-child (as the original story by Japanese writer Suzuki Koji narrates) but it is not clear how guilty she really is. A script like that of "The Ring" that has led to other films, from "Paura.com" to "The Grudge".