HALF-DROWNED HOUND 
The Ring
Is The Ring a perfect movie? No. Is it at least one of the best movies I've ever seen? Definitely not. I can, however, say with confidence that it's the most movie of all time.
Actually, The Ring first stuck with me because I hated it so bad- specifically the ending. I try not to start off with negative criticism, but it's hard not to get something lodged in your head when the entire hour and 37 minutes you spent watching a really good movie is cheapened and tossed out the window. "Oh, but it's part of the ~lore~ that the ghost isn't actually put to rest when her remains are and the deuteragonist is killed because they didn't replicate the tape!" Look, the original Ring books were about a grown woman who was murdered in a hate crime and the deuteragonist was the protag's sex pest boy best friend; we can put canon behind us a little for the sake of not excusing child abuse, right? Right?
Buuuut in order for me to have hated the ending so bad, I had to like the rest of it a lot, otherwise I wouldn't give a shit. And I do, because it was made in a laboratory to appeal to me.
From the beginning, the Ring series has been a narrative about cyclical trauma, even represented in the name. In The Ring, this is taken to the max, with Samara being a victim of child abuse, culminating in her murder by the hands of her mother. For personal reasons that can't possibly be hard to intuit from this, I'm fascinated by and strongly drawn to narratives about cyclical trauma and abuse. Up until the end, it's a well-written (LOL) portrayal of it, with Samara's life story becoming more and more horrifying, to the point where one must go "well there you go, of course she turned into a ghost and killed people, you kept her in a barn for having bad vibes." Like her predecessors, she's a deeply sympathetic villain, and she recieves (at first) an empathetic and meaningful resolution, i.e. being cradled by Rachel (our protagonist) as a sort of closure after being deeply mistreated by both of her mothers. (This is the part that the ending fucks up, and no I am not being brave about it.)
Something that makes the first two American Ring movies more appealing is that they have two layers: what the movie is about (the ghost of a little girl who kills you after you watch her videotape) and what the movie is really about (parenthood). There are so many things in The Ring (which took me way too long to watch) where I went "Well, nobody told me about that." It truly does it a major injustice to water it down to just 'the scary little girl movie'. Like, shit, it's way more tragic than scary, has themes people at large neglect to talk about, and ... I mean, that's about it off the top of my head, but it is sort of the movie's whole Thing. It's like Lake Mungo for people who watch Succession. (Side note: if I had a nickel for every time Brian Cox played a character who abuses their child (who has both a water and a Jesus motif) and then dies of cardiac arrest in a bathroom, I'd only have two nickels, but it's weird that it happened twice.)
Speaking of motifs! Verbinski knocked it out of the park with that one. There are, of course, the constant presence of ring shapes in the set and costumes, mimicking the aspect of Samara's curse that makes the victim see images from the VHS tape at every turn, but she also has- as I mentioned- a Christ child motif, which is always bangin', and the combination of her water and fly motifs are deeply evocative of a body rotting in the water. In fact, the heavy use of motif is genius in itself; following the theme of repetition, there's always one more ring, one more fly, one more pool of water, one more ring shape. The direction is in itself a ring.
I feel like I'm getting overly enthusiastic about this movie, but 1. it's my website and I'll have ringtism if i want to and 2. it is a damn good movie (i am looking Away from the end).
... It's mostly a damn good movie, anyway. The climactic scene is kinda ... hard to watch. Bad CGI, poorly timed comic relief ... it's not great. Maybe it's camp? Question mark? Someone get Susan Sontag on this. Thankfully, most of the movie isn't the climax, but. y'know. I would be remiss to not point that out. 's pretty bad.
Eh, I'm done shitting on this movie, though. I've done it enough. I am The Ring's #1 fan and #1 enemy. So, on the flipside: the characters, dynamics, and interactions are all wonderfully written. Scott Frank (the ghostwriter, and thank God for that) did a fantastic job of saving the cat in Rachel's introductory scene; she threatens her boss with violence and is established via a conversation with her son's teacher to be ... slightly lacking in empathy, perhaps (her autism swag ...). The audacity of the former is one of her most prominent (and delightful) traits, and the distance she shows from her son sets the scene for the character arc she gets about becoming more empathetic and a more attentive mother. The romance sideplot is unobtrusive, yet compelling; I fear I may be biased, since I'm never not in love with some ex or another, but tailor-made tropes aside, it is just ... good in general. I'll get a boyfriend who cups my face in his hands and tells me I'm okay when I freak the fuck out (which happens on a regular basis) or die trying. I'll get more into the dynamic between Rachel and Samara in my review of The Ring Two, but suffice to say it's agonizing in a great way. The interactions are deeply human, which often lends a kind of meta humor to it. Sorry, but I will never not laugh my ass off over Noah (the aforementioned romantic interest) telling his eight-year-old son about his dad sucking the first time he's alone with him. PLEASE try to be less divorced. Anyway, The Ring is a comedy.
Uhh, yeah. There's a hell of a lot to say about this movie. It's great, it sucks, it's the light of my life, it's horrible, I've seen it 60+ times, I'm extremely normal about it. (Listen, I was severely sick for a month and a half-ish. It does something to you.) But this is the third page on my website that I've infodumped about it on, so I guess this is like ... the end of the review or something? I don't know how to wrap this up. Watch The Ring.