The One Ring

[kickaha]

Every so often you run across a movie that redefines a genre for you. One that crawls into the nether recesses of your wet bits and refuses to vacate. That becomes a part of your dreams and your nightmares.

The Ring.

Just saw it last night (okay, I'm a bit behind in my cinema experiences), and... I still can't sleep. Due to a broken bed frame, Leah and I slept on the couches last night. In the living room.

With the TV.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, I refuse to give away anything.

For those of you who have seen it... you understand.

To make it worse, we pushed the couches face-together to make a makeshift double bed. I was on the couch below the windows, facing the TV... which I couldn't see due to the back of the other couch. But I knew it was there. Just feet away. Nothing between it, and me, but a few short feet of air. And a couch. And Leah.

And Frosty.

This movie got so under my skin that I spent last night entrusting my safety to a plastic Frosty the Snowman ring that was on a cupcake we bought after the movie. No, really. Somewhere in the dark of the night, after my adult self had given up and retreated to the darkness, my child self decided that Frosty would protect against the black-haired figure in white linen I saw spider-crawling over the back of the sofa every time I closed my eyes. I spent all night making sure that ring was still on, and that it faced the TV. When I rolled over, I put it on the other hand to make sure it still faced the TV.

That, my friends, is a horror movie.

I spent much of today fixing the bed. In the room without a TV.

And yet...

... is that a light rainfall on the roof...

... or static from downstairs?

Comments

I have to admit.

[byrdie.livejournal.com]

Two movie-goers who I most respect adored this movie, while a critic who at least amuses me panned it. I was sitting there and watching the movie with the attitude of "okay, so what's the problem here?" and thus failed to get all spooked.

ooooh. I like the invisio-text idea for spoilers!

Yeah, I have to admit: the confusion over the horses even got me a little confused. I mean, yes -- if the film needed a bit edit job, they could have just cut the stuff about the horses and tidied up a little around it. I have to admit, I couldn't figure out if she was intentionally spooking the horses to get at Samara's mother, or if the horses just knew she was bad and acted of their own accord.

But I definitely got that Samara was a psychic projector. However, and I thank you for this one, I'd forgotten that the group of kids were trying to tape something that night. That bit got lost in the rest of the movie for me. *blush*

So, how does a thermograph work? Thanks to Webster's, I've got that it's related to a thermometer (I'm just not that quick today). But what were they trying to measure that was coming out imprinted on the paper? I know what they got, but not what the psychiatrists were after.

She admitted she *did* want to hurt people. She was just plain a bad seed.

Hrm. Didn't Samara say something about not wanting to hurt people, but not being able to help it? Or do you think she was fibbing to get the doctor's sympathy?

I agree with pretty much everything else you said, as I noted it during or immediately after the film. I suspect that Brunching's critic is really funny to read ... before you've seen the film. Afterwards ... well, you kinda have to wonder if they were paying attention, or if they simply decided to sacrifice insightfulness or humor.

Yes, the look of the corpses was kinda odd. I was a little confused about how someone's heart stopping could make them look like ... that. Once we got how Samara died, it made a little more sense to me. Since she was projecting her story on others, it made sense that she'd project her death onto them as well, hence -- as far as I could tell -- the combination of death-by-terror and death-by-well look.

Hrm. Do I really want a copy of The Tape? Okay, I've already seen it and I'm still alive, but I think that having it would give me the same sort of woogums that just seeing the whole movie gave you. I don't remember any red froth, but I'm guessing it had something to do either with the death of the horses or perhaps Samara bleeding from her own fall down the well. The spinning chair freaked me out the most, but yes, we saw the chair. And the ladder. And the lighthouse. And her mother, the mirror, the house, her father, the lighthouse, the well, the ring ... pretty much all of it that I can remember, really.

Actually, I had a question about where the girl came from. I mean, the couple couldn't have a baby, and then they came back with a little girl. The "father" stated that his wife was never supposed to have a baby, and when the journalist found Samara's birth certificate, she had this look of disdain on her face. Was she adopted? Born by her mother but sired by another man (or ... whatever)? Sired by her father but born by another women (or ...)?

As far as spreading her message went, Erik rather wondered what would happen to the last person who ever heard it. Wouldn't they be quite seriously screwed? And then I think back to how Samara said that she just couldn't help scaring people, even though she didn't want to. She passed on more than just her story, I think.

Yeep.