#15: The Ring (2002)

“What about the person we show it too? What happens to them?”

As we reach the heart of my top ten you’re going to discover that (for the most part) the purer the horror the more satisfied I am. Films that end on a mystery solved/ danger over/group hug beat, like “The Sixth Sense,” make for splendid ghost stories but lack something in The Department of True Horror. And most films that try to fool you into thinking that you may now exhale and roam about the cabin, simply don’t work. You see the final “shock” coming a mile away.  Then there’s director Gore Verbinski’s relentlessly creepy and atmospheric remake of the Japanese horror film “Ringu” (1998) which, thanks to a very well-crafted piece of misdirection, succeeds where so many others fail with what you might call its fourth act; a stunner of a final plot turn that leaves you a little breathless.

It sounds like an urban legend (and a hokey concept for a movie), one of those tales teenagers tell to scare one another. Out there somewhere is a VHS tape of what would otherwise come off as a pretentious short art film if not for the fact that when it’s over your phone rings and someone informs you that your life expectancy has just been reduced to seven days. When the legend becomes fact for Rachel Keller’s (Naomi Watts) teen-aged niece, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reporter sets out to uncover a mystery she’s sure will involve something worldly (like drugs) but instead finds herself embroiled in an enthralling, supernatural puzzle involving, among other things, insanity, horses that commit suicide, and an unsettling little girl named Samara who might have been killed by her own mother.

Watts is superb carrying the film all on her own lovely shoulders. As the stakes steadily increase and as time runs out, Rachel is never anything less than capable and resourceful – only a step or two ahead of the audience (as it should be). Nothing contrived occurs to artificially move the plot and best of all, Rachel never does anything stupid. She’s a formidable protagonist and Ehren Kruger’s intelligent screenplay doesn’t let her down.   (more…)

A little over a year ago, horror icon Jason Voorhees returned to the big screen in a remake of “Friday the 13th.” This year, Freddy Krueger gets his revenge with his own new film, “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Unfortunately, like 2009’s “Friday the 13th,” the 2010 version of “Nightmare” is a great disappointment that fails to fulfill the interesting premise of the original.

The premise is a familiar one if you’re familiar with the original series. A group of teenagers is haunted by a disfigured man with knives for fingers. In their dreams, he attacks and tries to kill them. Unlike other serial killers, Mr. Krueger attacks people in their dreams but if he kills a person in their dreams they are dead in the real world as well.

According to the remake’s website, the new “Nightmare” is a “contemporary re-imagining of the seminal horror classic.” I have not seen the original in several years, but from what I remember this film heavily borrows from its predecessor, but this one’s not likely be remembered as fondly. (more…)

The remake of Friday the 13th is notable only for its title; we have seen this stuff literally hundreds of times before, sometimes done better (whatever that means to you in this context) and sometimes done worse. This new picture is a remake only in the sense that it borrows the famous name, the setting and a portion of the premise. Nothing wrong with that approach, it’s just that when somebody appropriates all those elements, they also appropriate a measure of expectation, even obligation, to do something memorable, or so I thought. These filmmakers failed to do any such thing. Maybe they never intended to. Movies are a business, after all, and there’s lots of bank to be made just thrashing a franchise.

Horror movies are almost all remakes now, and they fall almost exclusively into two big categories: Remakes of Old US Movies, and Remakes of Asian Flicks. Both tend to fail at the same rate in being great or even passable entertainment, and that rate is approximately 100 percent. Last year’s The Eye and Shutter were all remakes of Asian originals and all were pretty much forgettable. On the US side—and again, sticking just to 2008—we got Prom Night (which I thought was pretty good, but not many other folks agreed), and fresh (sic) installments of the Saw and George Romero’s …of the Dead franchises. Overall, these too were weak, and so were the dozen or so others I could have mentioned. (more…)

After I posted my original Early Estimates column on Big Hollywood last night, I received a Facebook message from Platinum Dunes partner and Friday the Thirteenth producer Rob Fuller saying “I hope you’re right.” My Friday estimate last night was for a robust $20M, and Variety is reporting $19.3M this morning. “We were hoping to do $10M-$11M yesterday,” he told me this morning.  “In our wildest dreams we couldn’t have imagined that.”

I originally projected $51.25M for the 4-day weekend on Friday night, amd some analysts have the new Jason Voorhies saga sailing higher basec on early rerturns (I am now projecting $47M for 4 days). The combination of Valentine’s Day and a school holiday Monday for President’s Day make predicting the movie’s long weekend haul a tricky call, but regardless, this is great news for Warner Bros, which has the domestic distribution rights, Paramount, handling international distribution, and Platinum Dunes.

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