The Ring (2002) Rated PG13 Starring: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, and David Dorfman Rating: out of

Katie (Amber Tamblyn) and three friends view the video while on a weekend trip to a cabin in the mountains. Seven days later, all four of them are dead. Katie's aunt, Rachel (Naomi Watts), an investigative reporter, begins asking questions about the simultaneous deaths of the four youths. In the course of her investigation, she uncovers the video and, predictably, watches it herself. She receives a phone call that whispers "seven days" and then the race begins to discover the source of the video and the way to stop its deadly effect.

The movie, which is based on Ringu, a popular Japanese horror film, was directed by Gore Verbinski, who's made such films as Mouse Hunt and The Mexican. Under his direction, the film manages to maintain a disturbing and genuinely spooky tone throughout. There's an air of despair that recalls the atmosphere found in 1999's The Sixth Sense. The imagery and sounds found in the video that the movie centers around are creepy and unsettling. There's not a lot I can say without giving many of the film's good moments away, but I will say that there's a scene involving a horse on a ferry that remained with me long after leaving the theater.

Naomi Watts, who was stunning in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, is not exactly challenged by anything in the script of The Ring. The cast, which includes such heavyweights as Jane Alexander (Sunshine State) and Brian Cox (The Rookie) in small roles, takes a backseat to the atmosphere and the imagery here. Thankfully, the imagery and ideas are so good that that's acceptable in the frame of the horror/ghost story genre. The scare is the important thing here and The Ring manages to scare you in both the sudden shock and the creep-out arenas.

If I have any quibbles with The Ring it would be the over-explanation towards the end. While I appreciated the writer's efforts to make me feel like I should understand the preceding events, I didn't need to be bludgeoned with the details. Still, this wasn't detrimental to the films effect on my senses.

It may not be quite as scary and unsettling as Signs, but it does make a worthy contender for "Scariest Film of 2002."

Trivia: Subliminal frames from the Ring video are inserted in the film. (Source: The Internet Movie Database)