the groundhog day project

The Ring is 1 hour 55 minutes in length, give or take a few seconds and including the end credits. Numbers below will be approximations. It’s time to break down the script structure before I go. Before I move on to another film for the next seven days, that is. Meanwhile, I wanted to deal with Martin’s (2009) notions about Ringu and its place in the timeline of the horror genre, and by extension, where The Ring fits into that same timeline. Martin places Ringu —the American importation thereof, rather—into a postmodern horror revival that includes The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project , and to a lesser degree Scream . These are all horror films that are more suggestive than explicit in their violence. (Realize, for example, the only actual violence in The Ring is committed by regular, living, breathing humans, not by the deceased Samara.) The first 10% of the film should be setup, and the “Small Catalyst” should occur about 10% of the way in, according to Dyer (2010). A...

The ordinary becomes extraordinary, even scary, in The Ring . Not just the videotape (and by extension the VCR), but the telephone and its ring. That opening sequence, with Katie's back-and-forth as to whether or not there is a tape, whether or not she watched it, whether or not she's dying--it turns serious when the phone rings (only to have yet another double back since it's just her mother calling). Similarly, in the opening sequence of The Ring Two , Jake is horrified by the ring of the phone and so are we, on some level, even though we know better--Samara does not call you when she's about to kill you. She calls once, right after you watch the tape. The ordinary becoming a danger--that's anxiety over technological ubiquity turned into a horror film. Well, technological in terms of the VCR and the telephone, and ultimately the television itself. But also the ladder. But, I don't even want to write about today. I will forego that topic by simply pointing ...

I – RINGS VS THE POWER OF SUGGESTION Before I get into something more interesting, I just wanted to say that the prequel short to The Ring Two — Rings —is probably several times better than The Ring Two . You can watch it in two parts on YouTube . Part one: Part two: For those without the time to click through and watch those (15 minutes total), the premise is that the tape has gotten out. Whatever Rachel did with Aidan’s copy, the tape has now gotten around, and the short focuses on a group of teenagers who deliberately a) watch the tape, b) record the weird stuff they see in the days following, and then c) get a friend to watch a copy to continue the ring (though, technically, it’s more of a chain than a ring). There’s some confusing dialogue at the beginning (one guy says something about no one making it past day seven, when he means no one has made it to day seven… without finding someone to watch a copy, that is. But, otherwise, it’s a nice little short that leads quit...

“You can’t poop in this town without everyone knowing what color it is.” – Lou ( Doc Hollywood ) I find myself coming back to Groundhog Day tonight. I just watched Ringu and now The Ring is on and it occurs to me that both of these films (one being a remake of the other, there should be no surprise there) and Groundhog Day involve a sort of romanticization of the small town, or at least the rural, as opposed to the larger urban environment. I had to throw in that “sort of” because the romanticization in Ringu and The Ring (and to a lesser extent in The Ring Two ) is actually a bit negative, a hint of the invasion of the city, the crowding leading to a dangerous environment. It’s interesting that I cited Gerbner et al (1986) yesterday because I’m reminded of Gerbner’s mean world syndrome in which our viewing of (the violence in) television (and movies) leads us to conceive the world around us as more dangerous than it actually is. The cursed tape in Ringu and The Ring cou...