The Ring Film Analysis

The Ring film analysis-
The Ring is a 2002 American psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Naomi Watts, Daveigh Chase, and Martin Henderson. It is a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ringu, which itself was based on the novel Ringu by Kôji Suzuki (who also helped co-write both film versions), and focuses on a mysterious cursed videotape that contains a seemingly random series of disturbing images. After watching the tape, the viewer receives a phone call in which a girl's voice announces that the viewer will die in seven days. The film was a critical and commercial success.

The Ring featured a large emphasis on the psychological aspect. The key focus was solving the problem, finding out where the video originated from in order to stop the “curse” from continuing any longer. The story becomes matter of life and death as the main characters’ young son watches the tape, and she worries that it will cause both her and her sons’ death. The main character (Rachel) goes searching for answers, getting the tape analysed by film professionals and even travelling to the location from which it supposedly came.

The film uses a number of key horror conventions to scare the audience. The actual cursed tape shows a series of disturbing images which are disjointed; it’s silent and has no explanation. The black and white images and short clips consist of a mysterious lady brushing her hair in a mirror, horrible insects crawling around on the screen, a young girl near a well.  This works well at creating a code of enigma, as the audience has no idea as to why the tape exists.

There are also violent incidents which engage the audience, such as:
-A man wraps himself in electrical cords, stands in a bath and flips a switch, electrocuting himself. He thrashes violently and there is blood in the water. A woman sees this and screams. Fairly graphic and disturbing.
-A horse jumps overboard on a ferry and is sucked under the boat. The water turns bloody. Not graphic but disturbing.
-A woman smothers a young girl with a plastic bag and pushes her down a well. Not graphic but emotional and disturbing.
-A man falls into a cabinet, breaking glass ornaments. He falls onto the broken glass, cutting himself and leaving bloody marks on the floor.
-A woman holds the body of a dead girl which begins decomposing. The skin and flesh melt away until she is just a skeleton.
-A woman is hit in the head by a falling object and knocked into a well. She wakes up in the water and gasps for air.
-A woman appears in pain and chokes; she pulls a long cord from her throat with an electronic monitor attached.
-A woman is hit on the head with a heavy object and falls to the floor.
-There is mention of several deaths including suicides.
These violent incidents fit the genre of the film, they are designed to shock the audience and unnerve them. The nature of these incidents is also fairly unusual which adds to the surprise felt by viewers. For example the horse breaking free and jumping overboard a ferry to its death is not something commonly seen in scenes of violence in a film. Violence involving animals also often unsettles and upsets an audience due to the fact that animals are innocent and defenceless.

There are a few scenes focusing on a young girl in a white room in a psychiatric unit. The white walls and bare room, combined with a single chair in the middle represents a key stereotype of mental hospitals or as they were called in the past-asylums. Featuring a character with mental illness or within an asylum is also a common convention in a psychological horror/thriller. This is because mental illness can often be used as an excuse for a characters’ behaviour, and helps us understand why they have done such terrible things.

Mise-en-Scene-
There is a common use of stereotypes. For example the main character Rachel finds the video tape at a cabin in the woods. Forests are often a common location in horrors due to their isolated setting. The house where Rachel looks for answers is set in the grounds of a large private farm. This again puts emphasis on the theme of isolation. The house is also old and traditional, as opposed to modern looking.
Props such as the traditional mirror where we see an adult lady brushing her hair are also frequently used in this genre of film.

Sound-
One of the key sounds in the film is the phone ringing. We quickly begin to associate this with “the curse”- the sound of the ringing phone corresponds with fear and we anticipate the caller’s voice saying “You will die in seven days." There is also the sound of white noise, which occurs frequently whenever the television is involved. Natural diegetic sound such as rainfall also constantly reminds of the gloomy weather surrounding them- another typical horror convention. Key dialogue includes, " I think before you die, you see the ring..." and the unsettling conversation between Samara and the doctor, "

1. Samara: I love my mommy.
2. Doctor: Yes you do. But you don't want to hurt her anymore. You don't want to hurt anyone.
3. Samara: But I do, and I'm sorry. It won't stop." Non-diegetic soundtracks are used, but they are fragmented throughout. The use of single strokes on instruments, or single notes are used to emphasize small,specific dramatic scenes of action.