In “The Ring,” if you watch Samara’s evil videotape and get a phone call saying you’ll die in seven days, there is one way out of your fate: make a copy of the tape and give it to someone else. Judging by the early reviews of “Rings,” the horror franchise’s third entry, movie critics might rather take the seven days than force the dud onto anyone.
So far, Rotten Tomatoes has amassed 16 reviews of “Rings” — all of them negative. Every review pans the film for failing to rejuvenate the franchise’s premise with new technology.
Taking place 12 years after the last installment, Samara has made the jump from analog to digital as she now transmits the video that allows her to kill unsuspecting viewers through the internet rather than VHS. There’s also now a weird cult that worships Samara and her ability to reach into the land of the living.
TheWrap’s Robert Abele said that Samara has lost her shock value: “…when you’ve seen one Samara-driven distorted-face death, you’ve seen them all. And when you don’t have Naomi Watts around to ground a silly horror film in something resembling a convincing human being, a movie as nonsensical and dreary as ‘Rings’ […] truly has nowhere to go.”
Here are some more reviews that are proving to be more brutal than Samara’s kills:
Tom Huddleston, Time Out:
“Imagine simultaneously eating wallpaper paste, listening to Coldplay and watching the entire ‘Da Vinci Code’ trilogy back to back and you’ll have some idea how grindingly tedious the experience of watching ‘Rings’ becomes.”
Brian Orndorf, Blu-Ray.com
“While nobody comes to these movies for the acting, a little thespian help never hurts, especially when [director F. Javier] Gutierrez doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing with “Rings,” hanging on to the best of his ability. This includes the construction of a conclusion actually isn’t a conclusion at all, but a set-up for future sequels, reworking the myth of Samara to fit a fresh round of online hauntings. It’s an obvious, ridiculous, and financially motivated climax, and it’s too bad it comes at the end of an entirely useless film.”
Peter Howell, Toronto Star:
“Gutierrez and his team obviously don’t believe in the currency of their own chills, further attempting to paper over gaps with jump-scares, sludgy cinematography, choppy editing and an obstreperous score. And they have the gall to hint at further sequels. That’s really scary.”
Brian Formo, Collider:
“Because ‘Rings’ is mostly dealing with new technology that doesn’t have that physical creepiness built in (a digital file is nowhere near as foreboding, especially when to rid the curse all you have to do is click “copy” and email it to someone else) the absolute absurdity of the premise shines even brighter than the previous films.”
Edward Douglas, NY Daily News:
“Movies like ‘It Follows’ and ‘The Bye Bye Man’ did far better things with this “chain mail horror” concept. But filmmaker F. Javier Gutiérrez really doesn’t have a lot to work with beyond a flimsy story, weak script and characters you’ll have a hard time caring about.”
Chuck Bowen, Slant:
“Instead of the horse ranch of the prior films, the origin of all evil is revealed to be underneath a cemetery, then a church, then the wall in someone’s house. Samara’s corpse has been moved around so many times that one expects the filmmakers to make an intentional joke out of their convoluted and tedious narrative, yet they never do.”