Movies
[Review] Is ‘Rings’ Worth the 12 Year Wait?
The Ring burst onto the scene 15 years ago and changed the face of modern horror. PG13 horror became the “it” thing for better or worse. Since then we’ve had on onslaught of sub-R spook shows grace the cinemas. Rings brings the tale of Samara back to the big screen, and the big question is whether or not the J-horror import still stands as a relevant boogey-person after all these year?
The answer is…kind of. It would seem the tale of a cursed video tape would be perfect in this age of social media. The idea that something as mundane as a YouTube clip could signal your impending doom is ripe territory for a horror film. Unfortunately, I can’t say that Rings exploits that concept very well. I’ll complement the ad campaign for giving no clear idea as to what exactly Rings is about. The trailers didn’t do a good job of making the film look good, either, but they at least kept some mystery to the proceedings. Ultimately we have an expanded look at the idea of a “Ring cult”(check the short film attached to The Ring Two) where people are watching the video for the good of “science” only to safely pass it on to someone else before their 7 days are up.
This is a great plot device to reintroduce us to the world of The Ring. Only we don’t travel too far down this line of thinking before the main thrust of the story takes effect. It becomes another mystery where our leads race against time (I suppose, they didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry) to uncover some integral part of Samara’s backstory in order to stop the curse. In other words, it’s business as usual.
I’d love to scream “studio interference!” I’d love to say an amazing sequel was railroaded by too many cooks in the kitchen, and perhaps that is the case. However, everything on display moves from a logical “A” to “B” to “Z”. It doesn’t feel chopped/re-cut to death. A matter of fact, director F. Javier Gutierrez stages moments that toe that delightful line between gruesome and gorgeous. The cinematography playfully begins with bright, sunny pinks before devolving into the rainy blue we’re used to in a Ring film. Scares on the other hand are not his strong suit.
There are two moments that serve to elicit the heebie jeebies and both have been spoiled by the trailer. The first, with Samara crawling out of the television thrown to the floor, shows promise for what the film could have delivered. The second is the final moments that tease what could be an epic follow up. I won’t reveal more about the plot than I already have as it does go in a direction I wasn’t expecting and ultimately serves to answer a question longtime fans of The Ring/Ringu have longed for.
In terms of technical stats, this is a solid work. It’s reported 33 million dollar budget seems a tad absurd as I’m not sure where all the money went, but it’s a slick production. I wish more horror films were made within this modestly-budgeted range. The lead, Matilida Lutz, is a decent enough heroine, though her performance is terribly inconsistent. Oftentimes it sounds as if she’s reading straight from a cue-card. I’d like to think horrid ADR is to blame. Other times, she is spot on. Her hunky boyfriend, Alex Roe, does a great job of…well, being hunky.
After a 12 year wait, Rings is a better film than The Ring Two, but not by much. Where Two was a convoluted mess of ineffective scares, Rings is a slightly coherent mess of tepid scares. I was never bored, but I was never really frightened or even slightly unnerved. Rings focuses more on the plot and mystery and seems less interested in the mood that these films typically excel at.
Rings does end on a high note, though. The final moments open the doors to a potential sequel that could really bring The Ring into modern times in a way that makes Samara relevant again. It’s just a shame this entry takes so long to get there. Rings is far from the complete train wreck we may have expected after so many delays, but it’s not going to bring Samara’s brand of nightmares to the digital age as it should have, either.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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