by MATTHEW HAYS

One couldn’t be blamed for expecting The Ring to suck, seeing as it’s a studio remake of the clever and original Japanese film, one that proved so popular it’s inspired a cult following and spawned sequels.

But I found myself drawn into this horrific premise, in large part because director Gore Verbinski (The Mexican) has thought out the visual style of the film so carefully. This is not by any means a brilliant, breaking-the-mold horror movie, but it’s certainly a better-than-average entry in a genre often stymied by stinking-rotten rubbish.

As with the Japanese original, the film centres around a mysterious videotape. When someone watches the bootleg tape, they immediately receive a phone call with someone telling them they have seven days to live. Sure enough, one week later to the day, they drop dead. (One might think people would avoid watching the bloody video after being warned, but the characters populating this movie don’t seem very bright on this point.)

Caught up in the mystery early on, tabloid reporter Naomi Watts tracks down the cassette in question, pops it into her VCR and watches it. One of the film’s highlights is the death-video itself, which smacks of a Maya Deren experimental short (“very film school,” as one character describes it). Now marked for death, Watts must investigate the tape’s origins with a new vigour now that her own life is on the line. Things only get worse when her well-behaved but sickly-looking son manages to watch the vid himself. Cripes, now the whole household is marking their spot on the calendar.

Watts holds her own as the desperate sleuth, and Verbinski lets the mystery unravel in a suitably creepy manner, allowing us various clues while keeping things quite ambiguous, even until the final credits. This version of The Ring doesn’t rip the genre wide open, but it will please hungry horror fans—and undoubtedly be followed by sequels. :

The Ring opens Friday, Oct. 18

>> Movie Listings