Rating: PG-13
Released: 2002
Format: DVD
Version: Full Screen Special Edition
Run Time: 1 Hour and 55 Minutes
Purchased: Obtained when old roommates moved out and didn't take all their stuff.Price:$0.00
Plot according to imdb.com: Rachel Keller is a journalist investigating a videotape that may have killed four teenagers (including her niece). There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. If the legend is correct, Rachel will have to run against time to save her son's and her own life.
Plot according to Allen: Some stupid kids die in the woods and a woman goes off to discover why. When she finds out it was because of some haunted VHS tape that kills you seven days after you watched it, she watches it and then tries to figure out how to save her life. Then she shows it to the man she loves and their son.
Growing up in Mormon culture you don't get to watch a lot of horror movies because of the "no R rated movies" rule so as a result when a PG-13 scary movie comes along it absolutely becomes the must watch movie until the next one comes along. All I heard about when this came out was how scary it was and how I had to see it. Because of my less than standard upraising I was less than enthusiastic about it which led to my only response was "That movie with the haunted tape? Really?" and as a result I put off watching The Ring.
When I finally did get around to seeing it, I will admit that parts of it were... well not scary but rather... tense? yeah let's say tense. Once again there was another creepy little kid that serves another reminder to never have kids. The stupid sounding concept played out well on film and I really liked that it was set in Seattle, but really that was it.
The pacing was slow. The characters absolutely some of the dumbest I have seen in all my life of watching Horror movies. That aforementioned creepy kid? Yeah I wanted to strangle him, especially because he was USELESS and only there to serve as a third "victim" for the tape. I put victim in sarcastic quotes because honestly anyone who actually died because they watched the tape were well warned beforehand and it was their fault for not believing the people who warned them.
There were no deaths. none. Well okay there were like 2, but really there was none. Now I understand that some horror movies can succeed without a high death count (the exorcist comes directly to mind) but if I am to believe that these people are going to watch this Deathtape I want a TON of people to die from the Deathtape. I want a reason to be afraid of it besides just one random person I have no reason to connect with died from watching it. Give me something to connect with... ANYTHING.
Yes the girl crawling out of the TV was cool and creepy. I will give you that. But one good scary scene doesn't make a good scary movie. It makes a good short film. Unfortunately this movie is about an hour and 40 minutes too long to be a good short film.
Now if I watch this outside of looking for a scary movie for a chilly October night I see an interesting allegory for how television is killing us slowly and deliberately. It has a good moral to learn to just go outside and play instead of watching movies and television. Unfortunately it sells itself as a scary movie (did you not read those wonderful puns on the poster up there?) and it finds itself in the Horror section of your video store and/or Netflix category and not in the Artsy Message section and as a result I can't really give it the positive rating you all think it deserves.
Final Rating: 2 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment