Review of Rings (2017) by Whitmorgan7 — 10 Mar 2017

When I heard that there was going to be a Ring reboot, I instantly got excited. The Ring was one of my favorite horror films growing up as a child. It’s one that I can still watch today and love. The trailer for the reboot looked good, maybe not like the best movie I would see, but good enough that I was excited enough about it to watch it the day it came out.

Upon entering the movie, I was pleased to see that quite a few other people shared my excitement, but also really upset that there were so many teenagers in the movie. I despise watching horror films with kids. They are always so loud. I sat with my popcorn and soda and waited anxiously for the movie to start, but I realized pretty soon that the previews were the best part of this film.

The opening sequence on the plane showed such promise for the rest of the movie. It opens with a plane full of people, and of course one of them has seen the dreaded VHS film. Zach Roerig is the unlucky contestant on the plane, and he tells his worries to a fellow passenger. When he says that today would be the 7th day, you can see the dread on his face. Then, his nose starts bleeding. Chaos erupts on the plane after wards as the film starts showing on all of the mini seat TV’s on the plane. Basically, Samara is there to take our beloved Matt back to Mystic Falls where he belongs (If you don’t get the reference, I’m sorry, The Vampire Diaries is where Roerig belongs, not here).

Quite honestly, that’s the best part of the movie to me. The rest is your typical bad horror movie. The premise for this reboot is a college professor buys a VHS player and sees the film. He learns if you make a copy and make someone else watch, your life is spared. He sees this as an opening to the “other side”. He’s dating on of his students, played by Aimee Teegarden, who I was honestly excited to see in another project, but disappointed with her performance, and she helps him choose “apprentices” from his class to watch the movie and then copy and make someone else watch. Basically, he is creating a never ending chain of doom. One of the students chosen is Holt, boyfriend of our protagonist, Julia. When Julia can’t get ahold of Holt for several days, she packs her bags and heads to his college, and gets caught up in the middle of all the drama.

Holt hasn’t found anyone to watch his copy of the movie, and Julia wants to save him, so she watches the film herself. Honestly, I would have grabbed literally anyone and made them watch, but true love at it’s finest, right? Sure. When Julia tries to copy her film, it seems there are new images in the movie, and hers cannot be copied. So, she has to figure out the mystery behind Samara and save her life.

I’ll admit, it had potential. But it fell flat on its face. It used elements of its 2002 predecessor, but didn’t execute them in a manner that could stand next to the original. Everyone hated The Ring 2, and even it is better than this one was. The whole film was boring, slow, and the acting was sub-par. There was a little bit of a twist in the story near the end, but it completely went off course of how I thought the movie should have went. I didn’t like the creepy professor using his students as pawns in a life-or-death game story. I didn’t like the twist. Samara didn’t scare me. I didn’t get the creepy feeling I got from watching the 2002 version of this film. Overall, I just didn’t like this movie. It wasn’t the worst horror remake I’ve ever seen, but it is by far not anywhere near the best. I’m disappointed I paid $12 to see this, and I wish I would have waited.

In my personal opinion, I recommend waiting to see this film when it’s released on DVD or Redbox. Instead, pop some popcorn at home and put in The Ring , it will be a much better time, I promise.