RINGS (2017) *

Julia (Matilda Lutz) is worried when her boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe) stops talking to her after he goes away to college.  She goes to the campus to investigate and discovers he’s part of an experiment by his professor (Johnny Galecki) who makes all his students watch the haunted videotape from The Ring.  Each student has a “tail”, someone they can pass the curse along to, so no one gets killed.  Of course, Julia fucks things up, leading to the death of one of the students.

So far, so not-as-bad-as-The-Ring.  It’s not great, but at least it’s interesting enough.  It takes the original premise, expands upon it, and (at first) breathes a little life into it.  Then it all goes downhill.  Big time.  

From there, it becomes a story of Julia receiving new visions from the tape.  This leads her on a quest to find Samara’s father (an actor too good for this nonsense who I can’t believe would’ve wasted his time on this bullshit) who instigated Samara’s abuse from the very beginning.  Like most useless, unnecessary sequels, it gives us a whole lot of new, pointless backstory that no one asked for or needed.  In fact, the movie dovetails into this plotline so quickly that it feels like the filmmakers took two scripts and Frankensteined them together.  (The fact the film had FIVE credited screenwriters kind of confirms my suspicions.)  

The first half-hour or so isn’t exactly great, but it’s watchable.  The next hour-plus is a boring, excruciating slog.  That’s not even mentioning the fucking atrocious, seemingly tacked-on “twist” ending that makes no fucking sense whatsoever.  

Say what you will about the original Ring, but at least the film LOOKED good.  This one looks like a double-digit Saw sequel, with lots of grimy-on-purpose cinematography and long stretches that are almost too dark to see.  I’m starting to think total darkness would be preferable to watching another Ring movie ever again.

AKA:  The Ring 3.  AKA:  The Ring:  Rebirth.