I saw “The Ring” last night, and if it weren’t for the audience (made too much noise, laughed at un-funny parts, and the fat lady behind me kept letting her cellphone go off – and cracked me in the head with her purse when she twice got up), I thought it was a pretty good flick. Not as good as “The Blair Witch”, but up there. . .
But, some obligatory questions (Spoliers ahead!)
Exactly what is the rule about the tape?
I figured that if you watch a copy of the tape, you have to make a copy and give it to someone else, because “Samara” always wanted to ‘be heard’
At exactly what point did the evil nature take over . . .
Did the evil enter the equation when the mother killed the daughter, thus bringing about the hauntings; or was the daughter already possessed, making her folks hallucinate, which made the mother kill the daughter, yadda yadda yadda . . .
The horses. I understand the horses kept the daughter up at night but:
[spoiler] IIRC, the timeline of events is that: A. Daughter makes Mom hallucinate. B. Mom kills daughter. C. Horses end up dead. D. Mom jumps from cliff.
At what point does the daughter end up in the hospital, and at what point does she come out, so Mom can kill her?
[/spoiler]
When did the daughter live?
The dress and appearance of Anna & Samara’s clothes led me to believe they were from anywhere between the 1880s - 1930s. Yet the father was still alive, and there’s color footage from a physch hospital, presumably from the 50s.
The lid on ‘the ring’ itself:
In the actual murder scene, where Anna suffocates Samara into unconsciousness, and throws her down the well, there’s no picture of a huge circular stone to cover the well. Then, a few shots later, Anna covers the well with this huge stone (which took two people to push off the top). Just how in the hell does a frail, little, dainty woman like that get the strength to pick up and move a stone onto a well? Where the hell did the lid come from?
What the hell was up with the one island doctor’s kid? Is “Stupid is as stupid does?”
(I made mention of this already in another thread similar to this, but I’ll reiterate it here.)
This may be kinda far-fetched, but we thought the mom made a pact with the devil, or an evil force of some kind, in order to conceive. If you remember, the mom desperately wanted a child, and would’ve probably done anything to get one.
After a “weekend getaway” with her husband, they come back with a child saying it was adopted. (Though, it’s later revealed that it was in fact a live birth.) The deal the mom made with the “evil force” carried a condition to it, and the mom broke it, subsequently turning the daughter evil.
Actually, we thought the timeline went something like this: (1) Daughter makes mom hallucinate and makes the horses go crazy, to the point of committing suicide. (2) Mom kills daughter. (3) Mom can’t bear to live with herself, and also has no horses, so she kills herself.
I think it was 1974 when that happened. If you remember, the ex-husband goes to the mental hospital to retreive the tape with the footage of Samara. The guy in charge of that whole tape archive questions him about his age, because he claims he is Samara’s father.
We could assume here that the stone ring was wheel-barreled in from the barn or something like that. The following scene where the mom is shown moving the ring over the well could’ve been a couple hours after the daughter was dropped in.
Yeah, I thought this was kinda weird… I just figured the writers threw this in to help with the doctor’s explanation of Samara.
Is this why the father didn’t want anything to do with the daughter, and
kept her in the barn?
It certainly would explain a lot. And I see your point about the lid on the well. After all, if the daughter was down there for awhile, I guess Mom had some time to cover up the evidence.
Tripler
Ooh, and thanks for the timeline help, too. . .
Why did Rachel not die, but Noah did? Is it because she “helped” Samara? Or because she somehow “cheated death” when she survived falling down the well?
Would someone PLEASE explain how the original f***ing tape was made. That was a HUGE plot hole, not to mention the whole “Let’s not go to the cops, let’s figure it out ourselves,” bit.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
And correct me if I’m wrong, but is Rachel planning on making someone else watch the tape, thus continuing the cycle of deaths?
How f***ed is that?!?
All that being said, it was more then I thought it would be, and I liked the miner homage to the shower scene from Psycho.
Almost, but not quite worth paying full price to see.
Rachel survived because she made a copy, that’s why she made her son make another copy.
The original tape was made in the same way that Samara made images appear on film at the hospital. It’s pointed out that the video couldn’t have been shot with a camera due to the lack of reflection. It’s only a “huge plot hole” if you have absolutely no imagination.
By the way, the fact that they are spreading Samara’s message in order to survive is not only the ultimate scare of the film, but the ultimate expression of the subtext of the film- that children are being ignored.
I didn’t even get that, until your last post. The way Rachel was with Aidan before the whole mess started (as evident in the classroom/teacher scene) kinda underscores it.
Good catch!
Tripler
I haven’t seen a copy of the tape, thank God.
That’s one thing I liked about the original Japanese version. When the child views the tape, it’s while they’re visiting the mother’s father. His cousin’s ghost tells him to watch the video (something I think they should have kept in the American one but didn’t). Once the mother finds out what she needs to do in order to save her son, she loads up the VCR and tape in her car, and drives off. As you see her car driving off in the distance, you overhear her telephone conversation:
“Dad. I need you to do something. It’s for [Noah].”
The sequal opens up with the coroner examining her father’s body.
She never sleeps because the images in her head kept driving her insane. At first it was “the horses,” but even in the ward away from them, she still never slept. And after her death, she could never “rest in peace.” She’s an angry spirit, thus “She never sleeps.” And, by “helping her,” Rachel and Noah did nothing but help lead to the death of her father and spread her curse even farther.
I thought it was pretty clear that the writers were setting up for a whole bunch of potential sequels (probably including one with more backstory on the girl’s origins).