The 100 Worst Movies of the '10s, #96: RINGS (2017)

100. THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB (2018)
99. 31 (2016)
98. THE ROOMMATE (2011)
97. WAR ON EVERYONE (2016)
96. RINGS (2017)



A lot of people complain about cancel culture. I'm more irritated with resurrection culture.

Somewhere along the line, movie studios got the idea that just because a series has lain dormant for a few years, a reboot or sequel or remake is somehow warranted. Sometimes, as with the long-awaited revival of The X-Files, it's worthwhile. Other times, as with the ill-fated fifth entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean saga, it's not. Rings, the revival of the Samara saga of the American version of The Ring (2002), is boring and ineffectual in addition to being unnecessary.

Give credit to director F. Javier Gutierrez (I know, I know--what did Javier Gutierrez ever do to me) for injecting as much atmosphere as he can. The credited writers are no flunkies, either: Akiva Goldsman has a ton of heavy hits to his name, and made a little throwaway thriller a few years ago called Stephanie that was a lot of fun; Jacob Aaron Estes has made some decent indie films, including the haunting Mean Creek; David Loucka wrote a moderate flop called Dream House that nonetheless introduced future spouses Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, and a year later wrote a turd called The House at the End of the Street that was notable for headlining a budding star named Jennifer Lawrence--but more on that one later in the countdown.

Rings lands upon some interesting premises in its first half-hour, and then jettisons them immediately in favor of another pseudo-whodunit in which the main character tries to piece together the clues. Why? We know from six or seven previous movies between the U.S. and Japan that it doesn't matter and she gets you in the end.

The more successful movies in the series--namely the first Japanese Ringu and the American sequel The Ring Two--worked because they focused more on experience and less on plot. The premise is simple--that there's a VHS tape that kills anyone who watches it--but most of the movies in the series can't find a way to let the primal horror speak for itself. What's scary is not the quest to find out more about the origins of the tape, but the nagging notion that even a silly threat like "You will die in seven days" might be true. Kind of like how the zombies in Night of the Living Dead aren't particularly scary on their own, but the inevitability of a horde of zombies coming toward you slowly but surely chills you to the bone.

The first act gave me hope of some invention in the series. A copy of the deadly tape ends up in the hands of Gabriel (Johnny Galecki, really stretching to play a sketchy college professor), who of course spins it into an academic project and shows it to his students. This could have been an interesting premise: how much of Gabriel's research is based in legitimate curiosity, and how much is smug academic self-congratulation? And how much of it comes from his simply trying to save his own life?

But never mind that. Most of the movie follows Julia (Matilda Lutz), the girlfriend of one of Gabriel's students who has disappeared. She's living at home to take care of her sick mom, who I suppose gets conveniently better once Julia needs to trek off to the corners of the forest to investigate her boyfriend's disappearance. From here on out it's the same old lazy mystery story, following pointless strand after strand, stopping for a bit at Vincent D'Onofrio's house for some reason, and settling into a thudding non-ending.

Though Rings is really too insignificant to make a Bottom 100 list, I'm using it as my stand-in for every franchise that has been needlessly retreaded over the past 10 years. There might have been a way to make a Ring movie seem warranted in 2017, but little effort was made here.