On its face, you’d think a horror series about a viral video would be the least affected by the technological changes of the last decade. Virtually all of those changes, after all, were driven by our desire to watch viral videos. And yet there hasn’t been an American sequel to The Ring since 2005’s lackluster The Ring Two. Ringu, the original Japanese film, has five sequels and a video game for the Sega Dreamcast and has now entered the land of insane crossovers, but for a Japanese series, that’s practically nothing. There was something about the original film that stayed tied to the analog era: This was a horror movie with not only a plot thread about developing photographs but an entire set piece about videocassette tracking. (Ok, it was a set piece based on a completely made-up version of videocassette tracking, but since its made-up technology seemed to have been inspired by the sprocket holes in the Zapruder film—analog—we’ll allow it.) But now Paramount is finally going back to the well, with Rings scheduled for a Halloween release. And as the trailer shows, its adjustments to modern technology have been, let’s say, uneasy.
To start, there’s the matter of the tape itself. No longer a mysterious unlabeled videocassette—a physical object, as ominous as any black box, demonic spirit Samara’s deadly video now arrives in an e-mail, subject line, “Urgent!!!,” from “Unknown,” reading “WATCH ME.”
Paramount Pictures
Unlabeled videotapes are uncanny; mysterious letters are uncanny; mysterious emails are a daily occurrence. Just today, I received dozens of horrifying messages, from an offer of a “**14**DAY**TRIAL**0F**PurpIe**Rhino**” to a plea to “Quickly contact diplomat John Malvin here in J.F.K airport New York Usa.” None of these seems to have come with a ghostly curse. And yet despite Samara’s new, digital video (which still has plenty of analog noise), she still calls her victims on a landline:
Paramount Pictures
Perhaps it’s more difficult to burn a Braille message into human flesh through an iPhone case; perhaps the management at the bed and breakfast where the call comes spent all their money on duck eggs and Tempur-Pedics and couldn’t afford to upgrade to cordless phones. Whatever the reason, the movie seems to have only made it halfway into this decade. Technically, some manufacturers still produce the model 2500 (Really! You can buy one!), but surely an undying demonic spirit would master the Verizon network while learning email. Still, some of our favorite characters from The Ring have returned, from a creepy older guy who knows more than he’s saying to the hair-covered electrode stuck down your throat, so maybe there’s hope. It’ll probably be wise to let someone else watch it first, though.
