3 Decades of Horro

In 2002, we saw a new film hit the screens by Dreamworks called “The Ring” directed by Gore Verbinski (“The Mexican” 2000 and “Mousehunt” 1998). The film has a complex plotline in which a mysterious videotape is watched by a pair of teenage girls (a scene reminiscing that of the opening of Scream). After watching the tape the plot takes one of the girls into a mental institution and the other to mysteriously die. The tape eventually makes it into the hands of Rachel Keller, (Naomi Watts) a single mother and her young son, Aidan, who throughout the film has a special bond with to what ends up to be the killer. Rachel is a reporter and begins an investigation to what happened to the two girls (one of the girls happens to be Rachel’s niece). Rachel finds herself slipping down a very slippery slope as she soon discovers that others who had seen the tape had only lived for 7 days after seeing the dark images displayed. The tape turns out to be the summit of a giant mystery that will bring Rachel and the people she cares about to the brink of death. What kind of power is hou

We then see Richard kill himself, Rachel tries to stop him but he overpowers her and does it any way. Again pending from what angle you look at this from, this could be shown as being weaker because Richard won the argument! We then see Noah coming to Rachel’s aid; again by supporting her, this plays on the convention. Using an example, this is much like in “The Evil Dead”, in which Cheryl is always screaming “Ash”, for him to come to her aid.

When Rachel returns to her apartment, we see her break down, but also because of the state she is in, finally solve what is the mystery. By copying the tape, you are freeing her more and saving yourself. This again shows Rachel in a positive light and represents her as a strong-minded character.

The film is a remake of a 1998 Japanese horror film called “Ringu” which I have not seen yet and I am sure that this version will the be the first time Western audiences are exposed to this sort of psychological horror. If anything it may help Western audiences to look more closely at Japanese horror, or at least open our eyes to the possibility.

On screen titling is used in the next scene to show the time scale, “Thursday, Day 1” is used to show where about we are in the film. As Aiden is walking to school, he bumps into a strange man in the street; they make eye contact but walk on. We later find out that this man is what I think is the closest person bar Aiden in Rachel’s life, Noah. The shot cuts to Rachel opening the door and here we get the first shot of Noah’s face in a complete portrait. This could relate to Props narrative in which the hero/heroine has a helper, in this case Noah. Noah and Rachel play around with the camera, another detail in which leads to the secret behind the tape. When Noah mentions the tape, we see Rachel again shown in a negative representation of women, shaky, nervous looking, and the clothes and make up she is wearing makes her to look like she is a weary position. But we know what power possesses in the tape at the moment, and Rachel seems to know a fair deal now, and she still lets Noah watch it. She seems to give in and again this does not show a positive representation. But after this we find out a small part of Rachel’s past showing her in what I think, the most positive we see in the whole film. Rachel asks the question of whether she is “gullible, and easily rattled” to which Noah replies “no” to both. Rachel then starts to unravel some more of the story line, in which she wants to find out where the tape came from, and who made it.

The scenes then jump cuts to another convention by using Props narrative as we see a journey taking place once again. This time it is Rachel travelling to the island in which she was researching. So in sense this isn’t in fact converting to a typical women role, but the storyline is. There is also some good uses of images here, where we see the camera panning across following Rachel’s vehicle across a bridge while the images of the destination “Staten Island” and “Anna and Richard Morgan”, people that both appeared on the tape are displayed faintly over the screen. As Rachel is on the boat towards the island, we see her find more and more information out about the tape, and find out that Anna and Richard have a daughter named “Samara”. Again by getting herself more and more involved out of choice, we can take this as subversion to the stereotypical character. But then we see Rachel do the conventional thing and go to where the danger lies, a good example of this is in the film “The Evil Dead” (1981-Dir. Sam Raimi) in which a female character of Cheryl walks into the woods after hearing noises there. Typical stereotypes are now seen in the genre more and more.

“In today’s ever diversifying society one detrimental problem that remains is that of stereotypes and biases. Do the people in our country need to see more negative portrayals than they already are? Wi

Some topics in this essay:
Naomi Watts, Rachel Aiden, Noah Rachel, Massacre” Sally, Sam Raimi, Katie Bekka, Rachel Keller, Sidney Pending, John Carpenter-1978, Richard Morgan, “the ring”, rachel keller, horror genre, tape rachel, character rachel, “scream” “halloween”, props narrative, chainsaw massacre”, positive representation, naomi watts, character rachel keller, rachel keller naomi, keller naomi watts, “the evil dead”, rachel tries stop,