RINGS (2017)

Studio:       Paramount
Director:    F. Javier Gutierrez
Writer:       David Loucka, Jacob Estes, Akiva Goldsman
Producer:  Walter F. Parkes, Laurie MacDonald
Stars:     Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki, Aimee Teegarden, Bonnie Morgan, Vincent D'Onofrio

Review Score:

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Summary:

A college professor’s experiment with a cursed videotape unearths an undiscovered mystery that haunts a young couple.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Panicking airline passenger Carter tells Faith, the girl seated next to him, that he is nervous because he watched a supposedly cursed video, received a mysterious phone call that only said “seven days,” and it is exactly one week later. When Faith tells her friend Kelly what Carter said, Kelly admits she watched the same video. Paranormal activity plagues the cabin as Samara Morgan’s ghost emerges from the cockpit console screen and causes the plane to crash.

2 Years Later – Biology professor Gabriel Brown purchases Carter’s VCR from a secondhand store. Gabriel finds the cursed videotape inside, watches it, and receives Samara’s phone call.

Six weeks after leaving for college, Holt Anthony suddenly stops communicating with his long-distance girlfriend Julia. Julia receives a frantic video chat from Holt’s classmate Skye Johnston demanding to know where Holt is. Skye delivers a cryptic warning before abruptly ending the call.

Julia goes to Holt’s campus to find out what happened, but is stonewalled by Gabriel, who claims to not know Holt even though Holt told Julia about a project with the professor. Julia follows Gabriel to another floor and finds a television set along with an academic journal written by Gabriel titled, “The Samara Enigma: Neuroscience of the Afterlife.” Julia then finds an elaborate setup dedicated to the professor’s secret project regarding the cursed tape in a room full of participating students. Skye confronts Gabriel in a panic, demanding to know about her “tail” because her seven days is about to expire.

Julia confronts Skye. Skye takes Julia back to her place and tries to have Julia watch the video on her laptop. However, Julia sees a text from Holt warning her to not watch it. Julia locks herself in another room and listens as Samara crawls out of an overturned monitor and kills Skye.

Holt rushes over and finds Julia. Holt explains that they were participating in Gabriel’s experiment to prove life after death. Holt discusses the curse, adding that each participant always had a “tail” watch the tape to pass along the curse without anyone actually dying, but Skye’s tail dropped out.

To save Holt from death because he also doesn’t have a tail, Julia curses herself by watching the video. During Samara’s phone call, Julia has a strange vision and a mark becomes burned into her palm. Julia has another vision, this time of a bird, while driving with Holt that nearly causes them to crash.

Holt takes Julia to Gabriel. The mark on Julia’s hand confirms Skye’s earlier claim that the curse is changing, as though Samara is becoming more aggressive because of the way Gabriel has manipulated her curse.

Gabriel and Holt have Julia make a copy of the video file that she can pass to a tail. However, the video Julia watched will not copy. Gabriel notices that her file size is larger and it contains new footage of the bird from Julia’s vision.

Gabriel also discovers another video within the same file. Julia watches it alone and sees a series of images that identify Sacrament Valley, the location where Samara was buried.

Gabriel tells Samara’s story, explaining that no one knew the identity of her parents. Believing the girl was evil, Samara was thrown into a well where it took her seven days to die. Her body was found years later and interred in Sacrament Valley.

Believing Samara’s remains need to be laid to rest again, Holt and Julia go to Sacrament Valley while Gabriel stays behind for police questioning in Skye’s death. On the drive, Julia has a vision of a pregnant woman by the side of the road.

Holt and Julia stay at a bed and breakfast. Julia asks proprietor Karen Styx about a photograph in the foyer depicting the pregnant woman from her vision. Karen explains that the woman is Evelyn Borden, who went missing 30 years ago.

While collecting his work, Gabriel realizes that the mark on Julia’s hand is actually Braille. Unable to reach Holt by phone with a warning, Gabriel leaves for Sacrament Valley.

Julia and Holt locate Samara’s crypt in the cemetery, but find it empty. Julia sees her name scrawled inside the tomb before experiencing another haunting vision.

A man finds Julia and Holt and brings them to blind caretaker Galen Burke. Julia tells Burke about her visions and Burke explains that it was their town’s former priest who offered Sacrament Valley as Samara’s resting place. A devastating flood 13 years earlier was attributed to her body’s presence, thus Samara’s remains were supposedly moved to a potter’s field outside town. Burke claims he went blind in the same incident. He then feels the mark on Julia’s hand, but says nothing.

Back on the road, Julia follows a vision of Evelyn to an accident site where Gabriel is trapped in his overturned car. Before Gabriel can reveal what the Braille says, an electric pole falls on the car and kills him.

Holt goes to a local diner to ask Karen about Evelyn while Julia explores the defunct church. Julia finds a hidden room revealing that the priest actually held Evelyn prisoner and impregnated her with Samara. At the diner, Karen reveals to Holt that Galen Burke used to be the town’s priest.

Julia returns to Burke. Burke confirms he is Samara’s father, adding that he blinded himself so that he could not see Samara and she could not kill him. Julia and Burke fight until Julia pushes Burke down a flight of stairs.

Julia follows her visions to a skeleton hidden in a wall. Meanwhile, Holt arrives, but Burke recovers and knocks out Holt. Burke and Julia fight again until Samara emerges from Julia’s phone and kills Burke. Julia and Holt burn Samara’s remains.

While Julia showers, Holt finally hears Gabriel’s voicemail and translates the Braille from Julia’s hand, discovering that it says “rebirth.” The cursed video is suddenly emailed to everyone in Julia’s contact list on her computer. At the same time, Julia pulls peeling flesh from her brand and strands of black hair from her mouth. Julia recalls previous clues indicating that Samara’s spirit was searching for a new home. Julia looks at her reflection in the mirror and sees Samara.

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Review:

When I get to a movie after commercial and critical consensus has already certified it a dud, yet my own opinion runs counter to that collective conclusion, I wonder how much the promise of disappointment can be credited for conditioning me to find favor with a film.  Had I seen “Rings” without the subterranean expectations warranted by poor box office performance and a 7% Rotten Tomatoes score, perhaps I’d be heaving as much hate as others have.

Instead, I find myself sounding like Krusty the Clown endorsing his eponymous burgers with the noncommittal comment, “I don’t mind the taste!”  Because although “Rings” doesn’t deserve a thumb tilted fully upward, it definitely doesn’t come off as the total meltdown those negative numbers set you up for.

Since context might mean something in this case, maybe it merits mention that aside from “Sadako vs. Kayako” (review here), which I found fun, my most recent experience with the series was a “Ringu” 1998 revival screening in 2012.  The redundancy of “Rings” can be more of a chore for continuity connoisseurs who stay so far in front of the story it isn’t funny.  For me, memories of the previous two American movies are covered in cobwebs, so my interaction with the mythology is much different.

“Rings” starts out well enough.  As Samara’s cursed videotape makes its rounds once again, a biology professor concocts a paranormal pyramid scheme to prove the existence of an afterlife.  Students participating in his exclusive experiment watch the video and document subsequent supernatural experiences.  But when their seven-day death sentences come due, a “tail” watches the tape and takes up the curse, so no one actually dies and the string keeps stretching.

Here is where it gets intriguing.  The professor’s students start noticing that the curse is changing.  Body brands start appearing earlier in the week.  Violent visions become more terrifying.  Essentially, it seems Samara realized someone found a way to manipulate her curse and she is pissed about it.

Making a vengeful ghost more dangerously active instead of mostly reactive, and layering a secret society conspiracy over it, is a novel idea to run with.  Except what happens next is “Rings” changes direction and starts rocking off the rails.

The professor pretty much becomes inconveniently in the way, and the curse club concept is dropped too, as his student Holt and Holt’s girlfriend Julia dig into a different chapter of Samara’s story.  Act two turns into a mystery investigation that stays fascinating for slow suspense fans unfamiliar with the ghost girl’s origins, while franchise faithful are stranded to roll eyes or yawn.

The film’s climax is then sabotaged by clichés.  These include nonsensically separating the main duo at a critical juncture, a true identity revelation that won’t surprise anyone, and a “Usual Suspects” ending summarizing initially overlooked clues.

Its first cut completed in 2015, “Rings” went through test screenings, reshoots, and musical chair release dates for nearly two years.  It would appear the resulting second guesses culminated in the common curse of too many chefs, writers, and focus groups cooking too long in the kitchen.  Because “Rings” is almost on to something and then gets cold feet caught on closing out with unenthusiastic routine.

Conscious of a reported budget in the neighborhood of $35 million, which is at least $20 million too much, I actively looked for where that money might be.  One scene sees a toppled utility pole falling on an overturned car leaking gasoline.  I felt certain a fiery explosion was imminent.  Instead, the downed power line sparks and the driver simulates a seizure.  Wherever the cash was spent, it wasn’t on big or bold setups.

Common criticism lobbed against the film concerns what it doesn’t do, namely significantly advance “The Ring’s” fiction into the age of digital technology and viral videos.  There are teases of how internet accessibility and computers can alter Samara’s supernatural abilities, though not to the level many desire.  As a result, “Rings” feels too much like old hat.

Taken for what it is though, even if ‘it’ is a mediocre mainstream thriller, “Rings” actually isn’t half bad.  Maybe only one-third or two-fifths bad.  Matilda Lutz plays a nearly nondescript character, though fits fine as a typical horror heroine, even without romantic costar chemistry.  Vincent D’Onofrio is barely in the film, but when he is, he’s worth it.

Basically, the first hour of “Rings” sets foot down an interesting path.  The commonplace conclusion then twists both ankles and cripples the film’s formerly promising finale.

I maintain that the movie is ‘okay’ depending on what one wants to get out of it.  But “Rings” did seal its fate by ballooning its budget past a point of easy profitability and cutting its coherence to ribbons with reedits.  What could have been a series rejuvenator will instead be considered a murderer, responsible for killing both “The Ring” and “Friday the 13th” franchises at Paramount, if popular assumption is to be believed.  That’s more disappointing than the actual film is.

Review Score:  55

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