The Gallows Review

The Gallows

Rating: Forgettable

Themes/Genres:    Thriller/Horror; Supernatural, Vengeful Spirit/Theater Ghost

Main Characters:   Ryan, Pfeifer, Reese, Cassidy, Charlie

Publisher/Director: Blumhouse; Chris Loffing/Travis Cluff

Overview:

Hype can be a dangerous thing sometimes.  More often than not, in fact, too much hype kills entertainment rather than helps it.  Sure, it gets that initial burst of sales, but as soon as people experience it, with a bar set way too high by imaginations and expectations running wild, it ends up falling flat.  There’s a rare occasion of it being exactly what people had hoped, and there’s even one or two cases of it turning out even better… but ‘The Gallows’ is not one of those cases.

Before its release, ‘The Gallows’ caught attention with trailers that showed very little and a marketing campaign that ended up going viral.  It had a ‘Cloverfield’ effect where, there was so little shown and so much was left to the imagination, that audiences were left wondering and trying to dig into it as much as possible, creating mystery-hype.  Leading up to the release, it was a huge deal…. But then it came out… and immediately dropped off the map.  It was never mentioned again and, I admit, I completely forgot it even existed until it popped up in the ‘cheap movies’ section at Walmart.

Part of the marketing was to draw back to popular 80's horrors, insinuating it would be another major horror star

So let’s find out how, even with viral trailers that were grabbing the internet by the balls, ‘The Gallows’ fell so hard off the map and out of everyone’s memories so quickly after release.

Summary:

The movie begins with high school stage play in 1993, which ends up going horribly wrong when the lead actor dies in a prop-gallow-related accident.  Years later, in 2013, the high school decides to try and resurrect the play, headed by actress Pfeifer.  However, when the easily-swayed and unsure male lead gets talked into breaking into the school at night with his two friends to sabotage the play, hoping to keep the play from happening at all, and running into their leading actress in the process, they soon find themselves trapped in the school and at the mercy of the ghost of the theater.

Plot:

• Coincidence-ridden, most of which lessen the effect of the story rather than help and are ultimately unnecessary
• Predictable, very basic 'vengeful ghost' story
• Dicks around too much in the beginning
• Doesn't explore backstory that it should have, could have benefited from more moments involving Reese's father
• The only good twist, in a story ridden with cliche 'what a twist!' moments, was the revelation about Pfeifer's involvement
• The final scene involving the police raid of the house was just drastically unnecessary

Once the story actually gets started, it stays relatively on-track with the basic story, but the beginning could honestly be cut out entirely and probably make for a better experience.  However, the story, itself, is just a bit too basic and way too predictable to make any sort of impact whatsoever.  Person dies in an accident, ghost is out for revenge, douchebag characters die, one girl lives.  The concept of a theater ghost, especially, is nothing new and the movie, itself, explores no new concepts or ideas, whatsoever.  The plot is full of horror movie tropes, the jump-scares are extremely predictable, the similarities between the past and present play are groan-worthy, and it all adds up to a really boring experience. 

The ending scene... that you could see coming from a mile away.  Obvious setup was obvious

Characters:

• They're all douchebags
• Almost every single character is an unrealistic stereotype of some kind
• Reese is the only even remotely likable character by even he's way too easily swayed to do stupid shit by shitty friends (the true horror of this movie: peer pressure)
• There was a whole lot of "I'm acting!" (i.e. really bad acting)
• Dialogue is clunky and extremely unnatural most of the time, Ryan and Cassidy are amazingly stupid, even for teenagers

Here we see King Douchebag, douching it up and just asking to get killed by Theater Ghost

Seriously, the characters are so unbelievably stupid or such unrealistic jackasses throughout the movie you’re just waiting for them to get killed off already.  Instead of feeling horror, like you’re supposed to in a horror movie, you just feel relief when they die.  The entire first section of the movie, instead of building up the backstory and subtly hinting at what’s to come, just spends way too long showing you how much of a dick Ryan is and wishing Reese would just get better friends.  You feel no connection to the characters whatsoever and thus, their struggle, panic, and anxieties get no emotional response from the viewer because you honestly just don’t care what happens to them.

Visuals/Cinematography:

• 'Found-footage' style really worked against it rather than for it
• Certain moments of non-chronological order editing just comes out weird
• Does at least show most of the action when it finally happens, instead of leaving you staring at a black screen or everything happening off-screen

An attention-drawing scene for a trailer... but was way too 'Blair Witch Project' in the movie, including annoying up-the-nose camera angles and one of the most 'I'm acting!' moments in the entire movie

There isn’t a whole lot you can say about found-footage movies when it comes to visuals.  Normally I love them and I feel like they’re just a fun way to shoot horror movies, but this is one of those cases where even I have to say, it would have been better as a normal movie rather than found footage.  On the one hand, it doesn’t leave you with several minutes of pure black screen like the original ‘Blair Witch Project’ and it doesn’t leave the best action entirely and unnecessarily off-screen like the ‘Paranormal Activity’ movies love doing, you get all the action, even if the editing comes off a bit weird.  But on the other hand, there was so much there that just wouldn’t have been filmed, even by an incredibly stupid teen, that it just feels unnatural to be in the found footage style.  A normal cinematic-style filming would have been much better in this case.

Final Thoughts:

While this movie was, overall, incredibly boring and I can see now why it was so quickly forgotten upon release, there is one thing that I would like to mention: the actual tactics behind filming the movie.  For those that simply saw it in theaters or bought the DVD and never really explored the Special Features section, there’s a commentary about the filming of the movie from the Directors, as there always is, but this particular one held a unique bit of information that, despite the movie, on its own, not panning out to much, there was an impressive amount of effort put in behind the scenes.

The directors went to great lengths to get as authentic a reaction as possible out of both their audiences and their actors, even going so far as to film on an actually haunted location and plan out certain scenes in a way that would get real scares from everyone on set.  Some of the best acting in the movie wasn’t acting at all, they legitimately scared the crap out of their actors, and they went to a lot of trouble to do it.   It’s effort that I have to commend, even if the movie can’t stand on its own, knowing what they went through to film it gives it its own credibility.

Ultimately, it’s not a terrible movie, but watching it, on its own, without knowing anything about the filming, it’s boring, it’s clichéd, and it’s forgettable.  But I’ve certainly seen worse.  Is it worth picking up?  Maybe for a couple bucks, just to watch the Special Features, but nothing I’d plan for an actual spooky-filled evening.  It’s not going on anyone’s Halloween Night movie list, that’s for sure.

Alice: Madness Returns Review

Alice: Madness Returns

Initial Rating: Instant Fav

Themes/Genres:    Action-Adventure Platformer, Psychological

Main Characters:   Alice Liddell

Developer/Publisher: American McGee/Spicy Horse; EA

Overview:

Everyone remembers the Disney movie ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and it’s cute, bright colors and carefree tones.  Based a novel by Lewis Carroll, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, it follows a young girl named Alice through her dreams in a world called Wonderland, where she meets a whole cast of colorful characters and has to deal with the world of riddles and rhymes that have no real answers.  Alice is a uniquely creative young girl with an imagination that just doesn’t stop… but what happens when an overactive imagination meets a horrifying incident and a world so grey and bleak even the most dull and mundane of businessmen would be diving through the nearest rabbit hole?  That’s exactly what we’re facing down with American McGee’s beautifully morbid creation – ‘Alice: Madness Returns.’

(Alice's first weapon, the Vorpal Blade, pre-bloodied, of course)

Summary:

The sequel to the 2000 game ‘American McGee’s Alice’, Madness Returns does just what the name suggests.  Even after defeating the Queen of Hearts and supposedly saving Wonderland, and herself, from the suffering and decay caused by her family’s death in the first game, Alice faces no easier a time upon her release from Rutledge Asylum.  Over time Wonderland becomes corrupted again and Alice must once more traverse the terrifying landscapes of her mind to discover the truth about the fire and face her guilt about surviving.

(I do love the Hatter's Domain)

Along the way she meets many familiar, though warped, faces, discovering lost memories and battling the twisted creations of her own damaged mind.  Just like the first game, the Cheshire Cat is back as the witty, grinning clue-giver that more or less accompanies Alice amongst her journey, though only appears when he deems it necessary.

Gameplay:

• Gameplay is both lightweight but still fun and involved
• Movement is smooth and efficient, switching between weapons is fast, which is essential for some enemies and bosses
• Dodging is equally smooth, though it can sometimes make you take off in the wrong direction
• Platforming is efficient and rarely gets difficult, it does, however, get creative
• Overall gameplay gives a challenge without getting too difficult, keeping the momentum going and the focus on the storytelling
• Relatively straight-forward pathways, with frequent opportunities to explore and find secrets in hidden areas

(The world is there, but it also keeps it obvious where you actually need to go)

While sometimes I prefer a more open-world style game where I can explore and dawdle around, with such a plot-heavy game like this one I much more appreciate the simpler gameplay.  The world past the invisible walls are just as detailed as the path your walking in so it still feels like the world is there, but you can keep the story going without getting lost or getting stuck in an area for too long.  There are still plenty of challenging moments and bosses, but nothing that’s going to make you rage quit and wait three months to finally finish the game, completely forgetting whatever parts of the story you had gotten through before.  It stays focused on the story, letting you therapeutically hack and slash your way through all manner of terrifying yet intriguing enemies, ease your way through disappearing platforms, all while uncovering the secrets and details of Alice’s life given to you by the world around you.

(Whether it's a bridge, a platform, or a pathway, you're not likely to get lost, but there's still plenty of scenery to look at)

Level Designs/Visuals:

• Unique, details levels
• Environment builds past reachable parts, keeping immersion relatively consistent despite invisible walls
• Areas are equally as disturbing as they are beautiful, even when subtly so
• Each level explores a new area of Wonderland while telling a different part of the story
• Different dresses for each new area, starting each of them in the basic dress so it's kept in the limelight (my personal favorite is the Siren dress)
• There's a stark contrast between the dreary real world and the vibrant (even when violently so) Wonderland, keeping the two worlds so very far apart, despite their inherent, sometimes ot-so-subtle connections

The level designs and overall visuals are easily one of my favorite parts about the American McGee Alice games and this one takes it so over-the-top that it’s hard not to adore, as a horror fan.  It’s disturbing, it’s brilliant, it does a wonderful job of ‘disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed.’  The cinematography during important moments and the styles of the drawn cut scenes are amazing.  I can’t sing its praises enough on visuals.

(The Red Queen in one of the drawn cut-out style cutscenes, looking as batshit as always)

Music/Sound Effects:

• Music can get repetitive
• Does have some nice tracks, the opening theme is easily the strongest, anything with prominent violin is great
• Atmospheric music does fit each area
• Most satisfying sounds are probably the weapon noises, they're just nice
• Enemy noises are fittingly terrifying

(You can almost already hear the terrifying screech that comes from this thing)

While the music is easily the weakest point of this very strong game, it isn’t inherently bad.  Each area has fitting music and it does build the environment, a lot of tracks just get a bit repetitive.  Sound effects and background noises, however, are great.  It’s a soundtrack that mostly works in the game, but not one you’d go look up to listen to later, with the exception of maybe the theme.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, Alice: Madness Returns is a great game.  It’s got a strong sense of pacing and story-telling, the gameplay is smooth and relatively simple, the enemies are brilliantly designed, the bosses are goddamn terrifying, and the environments are some of the most creatively horrifying I’ve seen in a game.  The overarching story is intriguing, the happenings in Wonderland just get curiouser and curiouser, and the minor plots within each level keep the player desperate to know more.  It’s hard to believe EA had anything to do with this game, despite publishing it.

I can’t recommend this game more, if you haven’t played it.  If you haven’t played the first, either… well, good luck.

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Review

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni - Review

Higurashi (When They Cry)

Initial Rating: Instant Fav

 Themes/Genres:    Mystery, Horror, Psychological, Supernatural, Thriller

Main Characters:   Keiichi Maebara, Rena Ryuugu, Mion Sonozaki, Satoko Houjo, Rika Furude

Overview:

Good horror is always difficult to come by, moving into smaller subjects narrows those choices down even further.  Anime is no exception; for every series that thinks having some dead bodies means horror, you get the sparse legitimately compelling and brutal ones.  Higurashi is in the latter area.  Based on a series of video games and their multiple endings, Higurashi’s imagery horrifies after putting your guards down with adorableness and childish fun, while its story snags you and keeps you guessing.  It’s a series of differently focused mini-stories as each arc reveals more about the major storyline, though often brings up more questions than it answers.

In this review I’ll only be taking a look at the first anime season so storylines and plot relevance from the games and the later seasons will be left out.  So let’s take a closer look at the sections of the series that make it the confusing, brutal, bloodthirsty series it is.

Summary:

Keiichi Maebara moves to a new, tiny town called Hinamizawa and promptly finds himself wrapped up in the hectic friendship of a group of girls and their afterschool club.  It’s all fun and games, mostly at his newbie expense, until a horrifying truth about the town's past suddenly surfaces.  As he attempts to uncover more about this truth, he becomes paranoid and mistrusting of his close friends and the hectic, fun-fueled friendship turns into a gruesome nightmare for everyone.  But even once the group faces a horrifying death… time seems to reset and they start over, taking different paths and finding different difficulties each time.  As each reset passes, only one of the group, the shrine maiden with the connection to Oyashiro, seems to have an idea, or even remember, what might be happening.

Opening/Closing:

The opening theme of the series starts the series off strong with a beautiful yet dark song and animation.  The song, itself, is a low grumbling mixed with high vocals piece, accompanied by a series of short looks at each of the main characters.  Each view of the solo character, while short, hints and reveals pieces of their story without actually giving much away.  Unlike many other anime openings, it’s not using scenes from actual episodes, filling the opening title with spoilers.  The only thing the opening is promising is brutality and madness, a fitting explanation of the series.

The closing theme, on the other hand, is much softer and sadder and instead focuses on vague, yet fitting, imagery and scenery over the characters, themselves.  Some diluted blood here, a swinging knife there, a ‘dead’ cicada to end on.  More indirect glimpses of storytelling that still fit the anime well and both themes unique enough to be immediately recognizable as the series pieces they are, though the opening more so than the closing.  Though the ending theme is beautiful and just as important to the series, the opening is more immediately recognizable, in my opinion.

Plot:

Even though the audience is left guessing most of the time, as any good mystery does, the story unravels slowly and subtly throughout the arcs.  It's confusing and terrifying right up to the end of the first season, but in ways that keep you wanting to know more.  Considering the fact that the anime is based on a game and all of its multiple endings, it’s relatively well put-together.  It keeps you curious to the overall story, but the ending of each arc feels final enough that you know it was an ending.

There's even very little filler, if any, in this series as each arc is only 4-5 episodes long and they need to reveal just enough to give you pieces of the puzzle, but leave enough for the next arc to fill in more.  Since it only has 26 episodes to tell you as much as it can, the episodes only show you what you need to know to get a handle on the story.  There isn't too much or too little, as long as you take into account that there's a second season to finish explaining what the first didn’t finish.  Beyond that, there are hints and double meanings all over the anime that, while you probably won’t catch the first time through, a rewatch or two will reveal.

Animation:

While the animation may not always be the most proportionally correct, with itty bitty limbs and very large heads, the show has such a unique style to it that the odd proportions work in its favor.  Certain artistic choices, such as details in the eyes and face when 'Oyashiro' seems to be taking over, are especially noteworthy as they really give Hirgurashi its own feel, setting it easily apart from the many, many others.

If there’s one thing that’s vital to horror, is that it has to have its own unique style, especially so if it’s animated.  Outside of the actual scares, that’s what I love best about horror anime, it never looks like just another anime and therefore can’t feel like just your average, run-of-the-mill anime.  There are, of course, exceptions to that; there are series that doesn’t want you knowing just how fucked up it is until the brutal deaths start hitting you in the face, but Higurashi is not one of them.  Higurashi is a fucked up, bloody series that takes little time to get into the action so the art style works well with that.

Ending:

The series doesn't reach its final ending in the first season, having several games and arcs to work off of, so the ending of the season can easily feel unfinished before you watch the second arc.  It does, however, go through each of the stories for each of the main characters, exploring their different "bad endings" and managing to find a hopeful note to end on while also telling you there's still more to learn.  Many of the mysteries are still left to unravel, including why the world is repeating, in the first place, or even what, or who, Oyashiro even is.

It has a decent season finale, even though things still don’t feel completely wrapped up.  You feel hopeful for their future, seeing the possibilities that they can solve the mysteries around them, if not in the final life of the first season, then at least in their later reincarnations.  There are still burning questions that need answering, of course, but it’s to be expected when the first season and thus, the first set of arcs, are dubbed the ‘Question’ arcs.  Luckily, the second season, and second set of arcs, are dubbed the ‘Answers’ arcs, so the answers lie ahead.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, or When They Cry by its English name, is one of my absolute favorite anime.  It's brutal, it's bloody, it's relentless, and it's decently well-written.  It's a full-blown 'who done it' mystery but also a brilliant supernatural horror at the same time.  Even the harem-like undertone can be tolerated considering most of the punishment and ridiculous outfits, courtesy of the group’s after school club activities, end up on the main male character rather than the females.

The entire group loses at club games at times and faces equal levels of embarrassing punishment for it, so there isn't an over-bearing amount of unnecessary moe.  I couldn't recommend it enough… as long as you can tolerate brutal deaths and an anime that keeps you guessing.  Though I do warn, this anime is not for the faint of heart or easily offended.  Other than that, it’s one that I’ll happily watch several more times.

Figure Review - Sadako Yamamura

Sadako Yamamura Figure - Ringu

Production Company: S.H.Figuarts/Bandai

Price: ¥4,536 (Discontinued)

Height: 5 1/2" Standing

You're setting up your horror collection corner and you've got your movies, your books, your manga, your anime, maybe even a creepypasta collection book and it's all looking really nice and organized and shows off your love of all things horror.  But then you stand back and take a look and realize "I think something's missing" but you can't quite put your finger on it.  You've got the basics, you've got the shelf, you've even got a poster or two... but you're still missing something: a figure!  No collection of anything is fully complete without some sort of figure from your favorite franchise, be it movies, games, etc, and this carries over to the horror genre.

So while everyone else is filling their shelves with creepy ass Pop figures, I prefer decorating with the somehow-less-creepy-yet-more-realistic figures, be it from Target, comic shops... or, in this case, Bandai Figuarts.  For this first figure review, we'll be taking a look at a present from my boyfriend: a now discontinued Figuart of Sadako from Ringu!  And while I'm not much of an expert in the figure-reviewing-genre of life, I'm pretty fond of this one so let me tell you why.

First things first, let's take a look at the poseable features of figure:

• Removable head
• Double ball-joint neck
• Full-Rotation Swivel Shoulders w/ dress piece coverage
• Double-Hinge Elbows
• Swivel joint w/ hinge Wrists
• Double Ball-Joint Waist
• Single Ball-Joint Removable Hips
• Ball-Joint with Swivel Thighs w/skin piece cover
• Double-Hinge Knees
• Swivel w/ Hinge Ankles
• Single-Hinge Toes

It's a high-quality, highly detailed figure with a full range of possible motions, making it not only fun to play with, but also easy to recreate scenes from the movies.  An important part for displaying in a horror corner, for sure.  The figure doesn't come with a stand, but stands well enough on it's own.  Plus the crawling position, both with the TV and the extra skirt, negates the need for a stand.  And speaking of the TV, it comes with a decent set of accessories to make your positioning (and play time) that much more fun and unique.

The set comes with these accessories:

• 3 different hair/head pieces
• 1 extra, crawl-position skirt
• 1 extra set of hands
• TV +extra screen
• Video Tape

The second TV screen comes with a ball-joint to attach the figure at the hip for a 'crawling out of the TV' scene recreation, as well as a hair/head piece to match the position.

Moving on from accessories, the details are what really make the figure come to life.  Unlike the dead eyed minimalism of Pop Figures, the sculpting and, though minimal in its own way, painting on this figure gives it an almost 'straight out of the tv' feel.  Creepy in its own way and all the more impressive for that reason.

While there isn't too much that needed painting, where it does pop up is really well-done.  The face is fully painted, even though it's more often than not covered, and shows the connection point for two of the different hair attachments.  One covers the face completely, but the other shows the eye and thus the face was painted for the killer staredown Sadako's known for.

The other point of painted interest are the torn-off nails from trying to crawl up inside of the well.  The intricate work here is really what sells it to me for the figure, a detail a lot of others might look over completely or do such a shoddy job of recreating that they'd just basically paint the nails red.  But on this figure not only did they actually paint over the nails, but they made it actually look like the ripped off pieces, trailing back a bit on the fingers, to give you that deep-seated nail cringe every time you saw her nails (or lack thereof) in the movie.  I really have to give them props for this detail, especially.

Then there's the sculpting, which is a much bigger focus on this figure.  Most of the details come from the sculpting rather than paint and thus the attention to said details are certainly of note.  For example, and obviously the major focus, the hair.  Not only is each section of the hair nicely etched for their own piece, but the connecting points between the different hair pieces line up well enough that it keeps the look flowing.

The dress pieces, as well, make sure to add plenty of properly-placed folds and pleats to make sure it looks more like cloth than flatly-shaped molding.


On the body, too, tendons, muscles, and finer nail details keep the figure alive without getting too 'flat doll' like.

So, all in all, it's a great figure and one I'm happy to add to my growing collection.  Right now I don't have much of a display I can put it in, which is why the pictures are on a bed rather than a shelf, but I hope to someday have a proper display for it.  As a final conclusion, here's a few more photos:

    

A Quick Look - Rings (2017)

Rings (2017)

With Hollywood throwing out sequels and reboots and remakes at every turn lately, it seems not even the Ring franchise is safe from revitalization from left field.  Naturally, being a long time fan of the franchise, from the Japanese original Ringu to the terrible sequel The Ring 2, I decided to check out the newest movie Hollywood popped out.  This will just be a quick look as I've only seen it the once in theaters and might do a full review once it comes out on DVD and I can watch it a few more times, but let's get into it, shall we?

Right off the bat, my first problem with the movie is in the title, itself.  Rings.  There's already a Rings.  It was a short film in 2005 that came as an extra for the re-release of the first movie.  The short explored what happened and the signs people saw as they went through the week after seeing the cursed tape.  It was nothing major and a lot of people never saw it, but it was a decent smaller addition to the lore of the tapes.  So they've already used this name once and, unless it's a reboot, which this isn't, you can't just use the same name twice in the same franchise like the first one never happened.  The only lean I can give is that the premise, the start of the new movie, is based on the idea of the 2005 short.  Except instead of a group of high school/college-aged students studying and blogging about the visions during the week, it's a shady college professor creating an intricate group of his students to study the week after watching.  But it's only used as a setup and doesn't go into much detail regarding the concept.  All it is, is a means to an end to get the main character involved.

Which leads me to another major gripe with this movie.  There are two writers.  One thing I've noticed, in my relatively recent introduction into the deeper world of movies, is that the more writers you have on a project... the worse it gets.  While two is relatively tame compared to, say.... Cars and it's 6 goddamn writers, it still becomes blatantly obvious where the writers seemed to switch off during this movie.

The beginning of the movie is actually decent, it has some brilliant cinematography throughout, one of the only real redeeming factors of this movie, the editors and camera crew clearly knew what they were doing, and the nods towards the 2005 short film, which are entirely in the beginning half, are a good setup.  But then the movie does a complete 180 right around the middle and basically just turns into a lesser clone of the first one.  In all the worst ways.  Including the final "plot twist" that was already given away in the trailer.  Anyone who's seen the first Ring knows exactly what's going to happen.  Hell, anyone who watched the trailer would know what's going on.  The fact that the characters in the movie don't is some of the most "screenwriter's convenience" I've honestly ever seen.

Which leads me to the next massively major problem: the characters, especially the main character, are just downright dumb with the worst case of  "plot-convenient naivety" in a modern movie.  We've all seen plenty of it and it's always annoying, the "simple" miscommunication that, if taken out, would destabilize the entire point of the movie.  Between that and it's 10x's more obnoxious cousin "we're in a conversation but I'm going to stay silent and stare off instead of answering or asking a question like a normal human being would because screenwriters don't know how to real people for the life of them", this movie is just aggressively annoying.

This is worsened by the fact that, once again, the beginning of the movie shows an entirely different character.  At the start, all the characters seem believably intelligent for a 2017 movie involving college students, yet, by the end they turn annoyingly dumb for the sake of a shitty, rehashed plot.

Speaking of the plot, it's just downright confusing and too obvious at the same time.  Jumpscares are seen miles away, twists are obvious, but an actual explanation of what in the nine hells is even going on is the only thing that escapes the audience.  It takes the concept of the first movie of going back to Samara's roots to find a solution... except that they aren't even Samara's roots we're going back to.  For some reason... it's Evelyn's.  Which starts with the most unnecessarily confusing backstory no one asked for.  If anything, the entire concept of "further explaining Samara's backstory" just lessens Samara's original impact.  In the Japanese movie Ringu 0/Birthday, an entire movie dedicated to how Sadako got into the position she did, even when straight up asking about her actual father, the movie still doesn't answer, keeping her true origins, which is a huge part of Sadako/Samara's existence, a mystery.  So the over-explanation where it's not needed in Rings... is just sort of insulting, in a way.

(As a side note towards the marketing department... no one ever feared saying her name.  That wasn't a thing.  At any point.  Ever.)

The one major compliment I can give the movie is the one I mentioned earlier.  On top of the beginning being a decent setup, the visuals were wonderful.  While the symbolism hit you over the head repeatedly, as, admittedly, these movies, even the Japanese ones, tend to do, it at least looked brilliant while it was happening.  Sadly, it still wasn't enough to save the movie from bad writing, but I do have to give props to the camera crew and editing team for giving the movie what little redeemability it has.

Overall, however, I can't give this movie a passing grade.  It's confusing, annoying, and downright insulting to a fan of the franchise.  It's another case of Hollywood Sequelitis that I'm glad I waited until a $5 Tuesday to go see because it's not worth the price of popcorn, let alone full admission.  Will I buy it on DVD once it's out?  Probably.  But I have The Ring 2 on DVD, too, and that's downright god-awful.  It's a necessary evil for full reviewing purposes.  And special features.  Sometimes it's not what's in the movie that says the most, it's what they take out.