'The Ring' is still as creepy as ever - even eight years later

Yesterday afternoon, I scratched another Saturn Award winner for Best Horror Movie off of my list when I rewatched the 2002 winner, “The Ring.”

Many of you will remember this movie, which sold more than two million DVD copies in the United States alone in its first 24 hours of video release.

Directed by Gore Verbinski, the movie is actually an American remake of a 1998 Japanese film by the same name. Both movies are based on the novel by Japanese writer Koji Suzuki. The American version, which received a Saturn Award, stars Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson and Brian Cox. Daveigh Chase played the creepy little girl, Samara Morgan.

For those of you who have never seen this relatively new classic horror film, it’s about a cursed videotape that contains what seem to be a random series of mysterious and disturbing images. After you watch this weird tape, you get a phone call in which a girl’s voice tells you that you will die in seven days.

The movie begins when a teenage girl mysteriously dies after watching the movie and her aunt, who happens to be a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, goes on a quest to find out what happened to her niece. This reporter, played by Watts, follows a trail of clues and slowly begins to unravel the mystery behind the killer video tape. Unfortunately, her young son and ex-husband are exposed to the tape along the way, which only compounds her problems.

And, I’ll stop right there so as not to spoil the movie for anyone out there who hasn’t seen the movie.

Not only did “The Ring” win a Saturn Award for Best Horror Movie, but it was also ranked No. 20 on Bravo’s list of 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The movie was also a giant commercial success. It was shot under a budget of $48 million, and went on to post gross revenues of $248,348,933.

In the end, I enjoyed rewatching this movie. I actually own a copy of it and hadn’t watched it in several years, and it’s still as creepy as it was the first time I saw it.

From here, it’s on to the 2003 winner, “28 Days Later,” another movie that I happen to own.