Rings

This poster contains the original premiere date.

A few days ago my wife & I were discussing films. After her refusal to my invitation (to go see Rings), I decided to see it myself since I think I'm sort of a moderate fan of the first two American remake films plus the original Japanese Ringu trilogy. With no expectations whatsoever, I asked myself why would the world of 2017 would want to see a sequel that took 12 years in the making? After I left the theater the question remained unanswered. 

Rings, AKA The Ring 3, is a direct sequel to The Ring 2 (2005)  directed by F. Javier Gutierrez and starred by Matilda Lutz(as Julia), Alex Roe (as Holt) and The Big Bang Theory star Johnny Galecky (as professor Gabriel) The story takes place 13 years after the events of the previous film. One day while, browsing  a yard sale, professor Gabriel discovers a VCR that comes with a selection of VHS films, so the fond memories from the past lead him into buying the artifact. Later at home he's trying to make it work, while all of a sudden a home made VHS tape pops out with the hand written label "Watch me!" Lightning a pot  to make the mystery worthy, the tape finally plays, revealing the legendary Samara Morgan video. 

Professor Gabriel not only watches YouPorn.

He also likes his students to join in the viewing.

In 2014, Paramount Pictures announced the initially titled The Ring 3D, with F. Javier Gutiérrez directing. In August 2014, Paramount was in talks with Akiva Goldsman to write a third draft of the screenplay, which had previously been worked on by David Loucka and Jacob Aaron Estes. In November, Gutiérrez posted an Instagram photo that showed that the title of the sequel had been changed to Rings. On January 16, 2015, Matilda Lutz was cast in the lead role. Alex Roe was cast as the male lead on March 20, 2015. Aimee Teegarden joined the cast on March 27, 2015, and Johnny Galecki signed on to star in the film on April 1, 2015, playing Gabriel, a professor who mentors and helps both Holt and Julia. The film had been rumored to be a prequel, however, Gutiérrez has stated that that was not true and that the film takes place 13 years after the events of The Ring.

Paramount Pictures originally set the film for a November 13, 2015, release, but in September 2015, the film was pulled from the schedule, and in October 2015, Paramount rescheduled the release date to April 1, 2016. On February 17, 2016, the film was rescheduled for release on October 28, 2016, to take the place of Paramount's previous October horror release staple, the Paranormal Activity series, which ended in 2015 with Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension. On September 22, 2016, the film was delayed to February 3, 2017, most likely to avoid competition with Ouija: Origin of Evil, leaving it as the only horror film that debuted around Halloween 2016 − along with Boo! A Madea Halloween.

Matilda Lutz, Italian beauty.

No nudes in Rings but here's Matilda nude anyways.

So, after the professor watches the cursed video, he uses all his professional resources to come up with a scholar research on how when one's soul dies, it inevitably fights back to return to life no matter the cost. This "research" has Gabriel using his students to prove his rather irrelevant theory. Each student would watch the film on the seventh floor of their university, while Gabriel would grant them a "tail"(somebody else to make a copy of the video to watch) to stop the seven day course from happening. Here's where Julia's boyfriend Holt watches the video and decides to stop contacting her in order to protect her from watching the video. Of course, this is 2017 we're talking about, so the video is no longer a VHS tape but, a fully digitized version that is copied every time a new student joins Gabriel's odd project. From then on, the film goes down a shit hole that never allows it to offer something interesting. 

The special effects are obviously good (2017 c'mon!) but that's not the reason a person goes to the movies, is it? The problem I had with this film is how badly it tries to turn into a teenage horror flick, without the elements (gore, nudity, sex) that make a teenage horror flick. The two leads are a couple of freshmen who have no clue where life is going, yet they're more "capable" to decipher the Samara Morgan mystery than a fully scholarly capable teacher. Julia desperately believes Samara is "trying to tell her something" and her muscle head boyfriend agrees. 

What the fuck?!

I'm sure I can solve this without any actual background knowledge.

So, with professor Gabriel's research (made before seven days, wow! what an astonishingly capable teacher!) they set to go to a small town in order to solve the mystery and obviously, save the day. The thing is, Julia changed the video because she watched Samara murdering Gabriel's girlfriend, so this random action, "updates" the original video, forcing Evelyn to take the matter on her own hands. 

Once they reach the watchamacallit town, they meet with a fat blind man who's aware of the Samara Morgan story, and are told to leave the matter alone and go fuck the shit out of themselves in the local hotel.  Clearly, that doesn't happen, they decide to spent their valuable time investigating, instead of fucking, how clever is that? 

Have you tried anal before marriage?

Somebody dropped the bass in the church!

Now, this is supposed to be a sequel so there's got to be something new to add to the urban legend the cursed video is, isn't it? If in the previous films, the story was solved by reaching out to Samara's story, this time we're told Samara Morgan was born evil because of her poor mother, and no, the woman who ran the horse farm in the previous films isn't her actual mother. Samara was adopted because she was so satanically freaky, nobody could stand her. Here's what I think, it could have been the stronger turn this film could have, had it been developed properly. You see, Samara's mother was a teenage girl who disappeared mysteriously 30 years ago. She was a genius violin player and for dirty rotten reasons she was taken from the watchamacallit town too soon. 

Remember the fat blind man? well, in reality, he happens to be the former priest of the town, and to make matters worse, he's a fucking pedophile son of a bitch!! he kept Evelyn (Samara's mother) hidden in a secret room beneath the church. Yes, he was a fucking pig, a piece of shit from hell. Unfortunately, nor the director neither the writers developed the abusive story behind Samara's conception in deep. Instead they chickened out of a far darker and interesting new touch to the story and decided to focus on our two asshole teenager heroes nobody could care less about. 

Hey cocksucker, you better review my film five stars!

I said five stars you dimwit!

So, by the end of the movie, they discover Julia's hand mark means "Rebirth" in Braille, telling the viewer, Samara's return is unavoidable. However, what's kind of confusing is, is Samara Morgan coming back to life for good? or is she going to be reborn in Julia's body as a brand new person? and what about the thousands of copies Julia's computer automatically sends to all of her contacts? will she be reborn every time somebody's seventh day is reached?  Well, I guess we'll never know. 

Overall, one of the many forgettable films you must avoid at all cost. Not even Ring enthusiasts could stand it. Rings feels all too much a forced PG rated film that lacks everything a good horror film could provide the viewer. Wanna go to the movies? Go see The Lego Batman movie! soon a review we'll land right here! 

Stay tuned and eat your vegetables!

Here's the movie trailer:

And the TV prank they made to promote the turd: