I would like to preface this whole article by saying that I did, and still do, think that The Ring is one of the creepiest movies ever made. It does a perfect job at keeping you in suspense through both story and imagery with no scene being so outlandish that you couldn’t imagine it happening to you. I have nothing against the Ring series but the ship has sailed along with the audience for the latest installment, Rings, and here is why…
Timing
Rings is coming out 12 years after The Ring 2, which wasn’t exactly a hit. They are not capitalizing off of any momentum and their key demographic will be watching a sequel to a movie that came out on VHS, a format that most millennials don’t even know about. Just the timing of this film leaves producers fighting an uphill battle, as most casual viewers have forgotten the events of the first two movies if they have ever seen them at all. On a separate timing note, releasing a horror movie in February does not exactly instill confidence, either.
Content
Even if viewers do remember what happened in the first two movies, Rings promises to be different; but how
different can it really be? They promise something new when the main character finds a video within the video, but I am having trouble wrapping my head around what that even means. It is still the same old trope of “7 days to live” no matter how many videos inside of videos she finds.
Another side of the content coin is that this is a film targeted at the millennial crowd and Rings is trying to scare them with an internet video. The problem is that this is a generation who lives on the internet and have probably seen things much scarier than a PG-13 horror movie online.
Bored Audiences
Horror trends cycle like clockwork and we are at the end of the paranormal cycle. We see it with slashers, zombies, vampires, and the paranormal alike. Audiences who first became horror fans with Paranormal Activity are not going to have the time of day for a little girl who crawls out of TVs. Even if this movie does get a strong initial box office drive, the numbers are sure to drop off as soon as reviews start pouring out.
Now for the best part, I hope I am dead wrong. I want this movie to be good, I want it to succeed. The original The Ring movie is one of my all-time favorites and was much better than the source material in my opinion. My heart wants to see this movie so bad, but my brain knows that I am going to be disappointed by the final product. For me, this is a win-win. If it sucks, I was right all along and if it’s great I get to enjoy it as a fan. The movie hits theaters on Friday, and we will see if I am right or if my opinions are better left at the bottom of a well.