The Ring

The movie The Ring I found to have three theories combined into one movie. It follows Carrols account of what a movie needs to include to be Art-Horror. The movie has a monster that is threatening since it haunts and goes after each person that has watched the tape. Each individual has exactly seven days before they die. The monster is disgusting her skin is pale almost a blue color and with long dark hair hanging in front of her face. Most of the time you didn’t see her face, but when you did her eyes were yellow, mouth dark and face a very blue color with red veins coming thru the skin. The monster is in all impure from her lightly talked voice, the way she crawls to get the individual on the seventh day and how innocent you think she is. One scene that stands out of my mind is towards the end of the movie and you think that Samara is free from harming others. She comes back to get Noah and she crawls out of the television and when she looks up you can see how disgusting and scary her face really is. After each person dies they are found with a signature facial expression. Their faces are struck in a position as they were screaming of terror or for help the movie never exactly tells you. This movie’s monster also falls under the condition that scientist today could not prove of such thing to actually occur.

I saw Freeland’s account throughout the movie which co-insides with Carrols account. Along with the fear and disgust there was a sense of Art-dread. The movie brought anxiety to each scene because you were unsure of who was going to get hold of the tape next or if the main character Rachel was going to survive by finding the answers. The theme of good and evil was also portrayed throughout the film. The whole story behind what happened to Samara who is the monster is so evil and how she goes after these innocent people just so she can be heard is worse. I think a horrible scene is when Rachel wakes up from having a nightmare and hears the television on in the other room and comes to find out that her son Aidan had watched the tape also. By the end of the movie I believe they answer most of the micro questions that I had been wondering about, but not the macro question. This led me to think of many conclusions that could have occurred. Although the questions were answered they were very vague and generalized which also described Freeland’s account.

The spectator emotion was shown I felt which is part of Schneider’s account. Although you heard the story that you would die in seven days if you watched the tape you wanted to know what was on the tape. Once the first death of Katie happened and you found out that her friends that watched it with her also at the same time you wanted to know how it worked. Each time someone dies was different in a unique way which I also wanted to know who and how was the next person going to die. For example when Rachel and Aidan go to Katie’s layout at their home the mother keeps saying I saw her face and the way she looked she didn’t just die because her heart stopped it had to be something else.

I found the use of sounds and color were a big part of this film. Mostly everything throughout the film was down and dreary. Everyone wore light tops and darker bottoms even the houses didn’t have bright colors. The color red would arrive in the movie when a new victim watched the movie or was about to die on their seventh day. At the end of the movie you see the significance of the color because it comes from a tree that Samara looked at everyday before she was killed by her mother. Example of this is when Rachel is watching the movie and the color red rises through the window into the house as if it were the sun. The movie seemed to do the exact opposite of what I thought for the music. When the monster was approaching it played the same tone throughout , but it wasnt loud it was softer. They used loud music for when you think something is going to happen, but doesn’t. For example when a train flew bye it was loud, but when the monster was coming it was like a tune o the piano.

After viewing the movie I looked at some extra features that were on the movie. In these special features it showed a trailer for the movie Ringu and also talked about it which I found interesting. This movie the Ring seemed to have originated from Ringu just like the Grudge we watched in class except it was called Ju-on. Although it seemed like Ringu was very different from The Ring you could see many techniques and some plot features that were similar. I just found it very interesting how they showed an extra on this movie which Americans took off from.

There is a sequel to The Ring which was made in 2005 and begins exactly where the first Ring ends off. Although the main characters try to get away from the wrath of Samara she seems to find them and continue her terror and to be heard.