If you've seen the earlier Ring Movies, you've seen this... is what I was planning to say, but it turns out the new one was really something new.

The basic premises is still the same (someone watches a videotape and dies within seven days), but it has a few surprises along the way, and though it's not directly scary (I don't get why Hollywood just can't make scary scary movies), it builds up a pretty eerie atmosphere. Out of all Ring movies so far, except for maybe the original Ringu (Japanese), this one hits closest to real horror.

The big twist here is how the video's found by a professor, who tries to decipher its secrets by having his students watch it - and pass on the curse to someone else before 7 days are up, but it soon turns to a familiar chase after that girl in the video, Samara, and vanquishing an evil that may be just that: really evil. Not wanting peace, but wanting others to feel her pain.

So what's the conclusion? What's the way out? Does this one succeed where the others failed; does the main character grow to understand the girl? It's not a flawless search, and as usual the focus on visual scares takes away a bit of the scariness, but watching this on a dark night, alone at home... it wasn't impossible to live into. The sceneries are atmospheric and symbolic, and the stories senseful, albeit jumpy, and I had a hard time liking Alex Roe's character, but Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz is alright. Not perfect, but not bad.