This is played out in the cheeky messaging that, where on-demand movies invite terrible things into the home, cinema is safer.Īs for the plot, the video cassette is a vehicle for horror – it’s how Samara enters homes and impressionable minds long after her death.
THE RING MOVIE MOVIE
Like Poltergeist, there’s also a whiff of industry tension about what the home movie market means for the future of the big screen.
THE RING MOVIE TRIAL
One such movie, Child’s Play 3, (1991) became linked to the James Bulger murder trial as a result. There are remnants of the “video nasty” phenomenon of the 1980s and 1990s, i.e., the fear of repercussions from violent and vile VHS movies. What’s interesting about The Ring is that it captures this battle for tech dominance through a story about a haunting. There was no streaming or no digital downloads you rented or bought VHS (Video Home System) cassettes to play at home.īy the time The Ring was released the VHS era was over viewers were turning to digital tech, such as DVDs, instead.
The use of video cassettes is in keeping with the era, as Samara was institutionalised in the late 1970s, when video was a common / cutting edge technology.īut more than this, video dominated how we watched on-demand movies at the time and well into the 1990s. Her psychic ability caused her memories and emotions to be caught on camera. So, why are Samara’s memories captured on an analogue video cassette? After being institutionalised as a child – for wanting to hurt people via telepathic thoughts – Samara was under constant video surveillance. The mysterious video and its curse represents and recreates her last moments alive, then transfers the same images – and terrors – to those who watch it. However, Samara didn’t die immediately: it took her seven days. Her adopted mother – tortured by thoughts Samara was putting in her head – pushed her in there. Later, it transpires it’s the last thing Samara saw before dying at the bottom of a well. The tape’s symbols tell Samara’s story, and what happened to the Morgans in the 1970s they also mirror Rachel’s present-day investigation.Īs for the name of the film: the ring is the last thing Samara’s victims see. One image shows something being pulled out of someone’s throat, mirroring the medical flex Rachel later almost chokes on. Hence Rachel encounters ladders and horses in everyday life, while a circling fly confirms Noah is looking in the right place for Anna’s medical records (a discovery that leads them to Samara). At the same time, they function as a map: each symbol in the real world is a sign she’s getting closer to solving the mystery. This proves very significant later on.įor Rachel, the images are also a prediction of the things that will happen to her.
And like other urban legends, ordinary people keep the chain going by encouraging others to watch the tape. Like the mirror ritual in Candyman, the cassette keeps Samara’s memories alive, enabling the hauntings to continue long after her death. Principally, they’re Samara Morgan’s psychic memories, burned onto tape as a result of her being locked up and murdered as a child (a kind of telekinetic rage – think Stephen King’s Carrie). While they don’t make much sense at first, the images come to represent several things over the course of the film. The killer video cassette features a jarring sequence of images. The main plot points are broadly consistent between them. The Ring is a remake of Japanese horror Ringu (1998), which was based on Kôji Suzuki’s novel of the same name. Then Rachel watches the tape, and the countdown begins … The investigation leads to rumours of a video cassette that causes anyone who watches it to die exactly seven days later. Journalist Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) starts asking questions when her niece dies in gruesome circumstances. How common horror tropes in The Ring reveal a battle for tech dominance and the fate of cinema.
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