'RINGS': Three Stars (Out of Five)
The third installment in the American supernatural horror franchise, following 2002's 'THE RING' and 2005's 'THE RING TWO'; the series is based on the 1998 Japanese horror movie 'RINGU'. This sequel has a college student, and his girlfriend, trying to survive the curse of Samara Morgan; which haunts you for a week, before death, after watching a mysterious video tape. The film was directed by F. Javier Gutierrez, and it was written by David Loucka, Jacob Aaron Estes and Akiva Goldsman. It stars Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki and Vincent D'Onofrio. The movie has been a hit at the Box Office, so far, but (of course) it's received mostly negative reviews from critics, and fans alike. I found it to be pretty disappointing.
A college professor, named Gabriel (Galecki), discovers the curse of Samara Morgan; after buying an old VCR at a garage sale, with a mysterious tape in it. He creates a college experiment out of the curse; where he assigns students to watch the tape, and then he finds them someone else to show it to (which saves their lives). Holt (Roe) is one new student that's unlucky enough to get the assignment. When Holt's girlfriend, Julia (Lutz), doesn't hear from him, she comes looking for him.
The film starts out pretty promising, and it's creepy enough (like the others), but it loses it's way pretty quickly. There's definitely some cool, and somewhat frightening, scenes in it; but they're mostly all in the first half of the movie. This sequel is definitely not as original, or as memorable, as it's predecessors; but it's worst crime is that it's just boring. The first half is mildly amusing, but the second half is definitely a bore!
