It was either this or Fifty Shades Darker when I drove up to Tweed the other day – a no-brainer if ever there was one. This is the third offshoot spawned by Japanese director Hideo Nakata’s 1998 Ring, a schlock horror flick that is fast (and justifiably, IMHO) attaining cult status. The latest is neither a remake nor a sequel, but rather it is a creepy teen romance/mystery that borrows all of the tropes and motifs of the original, even to the point of using the short B/W video that causes all the trouble. Grainy and surreal, like something that might have been concocted by Man Ray or Jean Cocteau, the video culminates with a girl, whose face is entirely covered by wet black hair, emerging horridly from a stone well. Those who view it are immediately telephoned and told by a faint voice that they have seven days to live. The only way that they can avoid this fate is if they in turn find somebody else to watch it (a ‘tail’, as that new victim is referred to here). It is a fascinating moral dilemma – would you knowingly pass on the curse to another innocent victim? How desperately do the dying envy the living? Cute Julia (Matilda Lutz) and her boyfriend, even cuter Holt (Alex Roe), have come under the influence of a college professor (Johnny Galecki), who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jack Black and is working on proving that there is an afterlife. Eventually, the kids track down a blind priest in a spooky house who might have something to do with a girl who disappeared years ago. The atmos is thick with a typically heavy-handed soundtrack (never inappropriate, however, in this genre) and poor Julia does more panting than I’ve heard since Nicole Kidman was being stalked by Billy Zane on that yacht in Dead Calm. The effects work a treat because they are not overdone and if the denouement is flagged early it is genuinely suspenseful, with a classic ‘more to follow’ postscript. I enjoyed it heaps.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling.
If you are a local business owner help us and in turn we help you. All The Echo asks for is advertising, not a free ride. It is every advert in The Echo and on www.echo.net.au, which creates the space for all the stories and coverage of community events, happenings and concerns.
If you are a reader you can become a sponsor of The Echo. Your support keeps the us independent.
Even a small one-off or regular donation from you will help keep the echo’s independent voice alive and strong.
Support Us
Become one of the supporters who helps keep independent, local journalism alive in the Byron Shire by contributing anything from as little as the cost of a coffee each month.
You’re supporting The Echo, thank you
Your contribution is keeping independent, local journalism alive in the Northern Rivers.
Because of supporters like you, we can keep every story free for everyone — no paywall, no exceptions. Your money goes directly to funding our newsroom of 40-odd local workers covering the stories that matter to this community.
Tell us what you think, give us your opinion
The Echo loves your letters and comments and is proud to provide a community forum on the issues that matter most to our readers and the people of the NSW north coast. So don’t be a passive reader, email us your epistles at editor@echo.net.au.
The letters deadline for The Echo is noon Friday. Letters longer than 200 words may be cut. The publication of letters is at the discretion of the letters editor. Please remember to include your full name, address and telephone number.
Online comments are no longer available.
