Monday, 6 February 2017

Rings - The scoop and digest

Not to be confused with Jonathan Liebesman's sequel short of same name to The Ring, F. Javier GutiƩrrez practically ignores The Ring Two and picks things up 13 years after 2002 American original.

Matilda Lutz - Julia
Alex Roe - Holt
Vincent D'Onifrio - Burke
Johnny Galecki - Gabriel
Bonnie Morgan - Samara

Two airplane passengers learn each have watched Samara's tape and realise seven-day deadline is up.  Samara shows up and forces plane to crash.

Isn't she only supposed to kill those who've watched footage?

Cheating bitch.

2 years later, college Professor Gabriel buys VCR from a yard sale and plays tape found inside.

Members of Gabriel's private experiment The Samara Enigma watch and record themselves, before copy of death sentence is made and passed on to somebody else, called a 'tail'.

After doomed student Skye appears on video chat, Julia goes looking for boyfriend Holt.

Skye fails in getting Julia to become her tail and dies.

Refusing to let Holt kick the bucket, Julia voluntarily watches the video.

Extended cut makes file larger than usual, and consequently, cannot be copied.

Mandatory phone call marks hand with mysterious symbol and with time already ticking, visions and location of Samara's burial give her a fighting chance of getting out of this alive.

It appears Samara is leaving Julia a trail of breadcrumbs for soul to be set free.

Julia and Holt start to join the dots and find unmarked tomb inconveniently empty.

They're brought before a blind man who spins them a yarn about Samara's whereabouts.

Before Gabriel can warn Julia about Braille translation, he's killed by bizarre accident involving fallen telegraph pole.

Hmmm, it's almost like The Omen.

Julia finds evidence inside church's hidden chamber how after falling pregnant, Samara's mother Evelyn was imprisoned by a priest underground for 8 months.

Burke isn't very impressed with revelation and drum roll...

Former priest and Samara's father blinded himself on purpose to secure immunity against vengeful daughter.

Clouting fruit loop buys enough time to find Samara's skeleton and cicada swarm summons lady pants through Julia's phone.

She restores Burke's sight and promptly murders him.

Remains are burnt, apparently lifting curse.

Not really.

Back home, Julia coughs up a huge clump of hair from which a fly is born.

Holt translates Braille via Gabriel's voicemail as 'rebirth' and Julia's video suddenly goes viral.

As Julia gazes at pretty self in mirror, Samara stares back.

Yawn

Hollywood needs to stop churning out such unnecessary bullshit.

Exploring Samara's backstory was mildly interesting, but how mystery unfolds is spectacularly predictable and running time delivers zero horror.

Creepy girl emerging from well and crawling through CRT was once very effective, but now...

Incorporating present day tech from first canonical Rasen sequel Sadako 3D does nothing to reinvigorate a franchise well and truly dead in the water.

No comments:

Post a Comment