Movies News Talk
The Ring by Gore Verbinski has a shockingly cold twist ending. Actually, the ending is quite dark for all those engaged. Although the ending of The Ring offers one of the most unforgettable scares in horror movie history, it sometimes takes attention away from the gloom of the narrative. Inspired by Koji Suzuki's book and Hideo Nakata's Japanese adaptation of the same name, Gore Verbinski's The Ring was a hugely significant horror movie of the early 21st century that spawned a flood of Hollywood projects drawing inspiration from the rapidly expanding Japanese horror movie scene. Apart from that legacy, The Ring can stand on its own as a great entry into the genre with an unforgettable ending.
The film centers on Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), a journalist investigating the myth of a vanished videotape allegedly able to kill anyone viewing it within seven days. Rachel investigates the background of the tape and, finally views it personally. Sadly, Rachel's son Aidan Keller (David Dorfman) also views the tape, even as it becomes abundantly evident that the legend is more than just ghost story. Rachel, racing against time, learns that the curse originated with the death of a girl called Samara Morgan ( Daveigh Chase) and believes that helping her spirit find peace will release the curse.
Curse of Samara Morgan: Cycle of Violence and Retaliation
Rachel tells Aidan the curse has been lifted since she has saved Samara and laid her to rest after pulling her corpse from the well and planning a fitting burial. But a tormented Aidan tells Rachel that "Samara never sleeps," meaning she will be carrying on her murder spree to satisfy her need for retribution. Rachel's soon-to--be ex-partner, Noah Clay (Martin Henderson), is killed by Samara, who crawls across the TV screen in a particularly horrific sequence. Rachel realizes she wasn't spared since she made a copy of the tape and helped Samara.
Aidan watched that copy of the tape earlier in The Ring, so sparing his mother from Samara. Rachel uses the same reasoning and orders Aidan to create his own copy of the tape to present to an unwary stranger, so saving him. Aidan asks his mother what will happen to the next viewer in a really eerie moment; but, Rachel doesn't respond. She emphasizes safeguarding her own child after all, even if someone else will suffer. Noah's death still shocks us as a dramatic subversion of the supposed "happy ending," and starts a far darker path.
The outcome of Samara Morgan's victory is bleak.
Samara wanted exactly what she was passing on the curse to save herself: the resentment and anger she felt for seven days before her death changed her into a Yūrei, a spirit unable of entering a calm afterlife. Having said that, Samara's spirit would eventually get more authority if the murderous frenzy were carried on, so enhancing her capacity to imprint her wrath onto the physical world. The way The Ring ends raises the question of whether one should let someone else take their place or accept the fate these people have coming toward them. In any case, Samara prevails.
Childhood Trauma: Haunting Past of Samara Morgan
Finding the Morgan's house helps Rachel to better understand Samara's past. Anna Morgan (Banita Sandhu), Samara's mother, turns out to be a psychic tormented by her inability to give her daughter the love and affection she so yearned for. Samara's suffering started in her early years when her mother mistreated her trying to "control" her psychic capacity. Samara's terrible death followed from this abuse. Samara's vengeful spirit and drive to exact retribution on the people she felt had wronged her—especially her mother and the planet she felt had betrayed her—were motivated by her past trauma.
The Ring's Ending: A Desperate Life for the Surviving
The Ring's ending suggests that Rachel can save Aidan if she creates a copied tape and distributes it to someone else, so rendering that person instead dead. It then starts a dark and unsettling cycle whereby one either follows the same path of dooming someone else or dies due of the curse. Those who decide to live are cursed in another sense, distributing the damage of the tape and Samara's vindictive spirit. Like the Entity in It Follows, the curse turns into a virus to be transmitted.
The Metaphor of The Tape: A Virus of Destruction and Anxiety
Koji Suzuki's books, in which the tape shows a mutant form of smallpox into the physical body of the spectator, have delved deeply into the metaphor of the tape as akin to a virus. Samara is a nensha, a being with psychokinetic ability to burn images, emotions, or memories into objects with her mind. This is thought feasible. According to the book, the tape also shows the viewer a tumor in their heart that kills them on the seventh day.
In Suzuki's sequel book, Spiral, the virus mutates even more and infects people via other audio-visual devices as well as written stories. Applied to 2002's The Ring, the ending suggests that, whether one is ready for it or not, death is inevitable and constantly around the corner. Although copying the tape and passing on the curse can help one prolong their life, it is only a matter of time before guilt and regret trap them over time, so preferring death over selfishly passing on the legacy of a vengeful spirit.