The Ring

Rating: ****
Cast: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson
Direction: Gore Verbinski
Remakes of American classics and contemporary European movies are stale news. Now, believe it or not, Hollywood honchos are turning to the Far East for material to retread.
So here''s an `adaptation'' of a trial-blazing 1998 Japanese shocker of the same name. On the surface, The Ring appears to be just another exploitative horror flick.Even the choice of Gore Verbinski, who previously helmed the feel-good comedy Mousehunt, as director, seems somewhat suspect if not surprising.
Fortunately, he marshalls his resources with commendable skill to deliver a bone-chilling psycho-thriller. We are hooked rightaway as a Seattle-based journalist (Watts) sets out to investigate the mysterious death of her young niece. It seems that the niece had watched a cursed videotape together with three other friends. All the four youngsters met a grisly death soon after the video-viewing. Based, as many horror stories are, on urban legend, the film can be read as a parable on the forbidden.
Having watched the sinister tape herself, the journo must now race against time. Enlisting the help of an electronic geek (Henderson) and her own psychic son (David Dorfman), she is determined to solve the mystery before a nerve-wracking deadline of seven days. Marvelously surrealistic (watch a horse running amuck on a ferry- boat), clever (note the allusions to Hitchcock''s Rear Window and Psycho) and effectively using the motif of water (car windshield wipers obliterating rain), the film has style with a capital S. The photography by Bojan Bazelli is to die for.
In addition, the expert performances by Naomi Watts (the sensuous femme fatale from Mulholland Drive) as the distraught journalist whose son may be the next video victim, and Brian Cox in the supporting role of a horse breeder, contribute considerably to this unusual thriller that''s a must-catch.