Benjamin's Stash: Video Pick of the Week

      Hello, readers. Time for Tuesday's recommended viewing choice. Today's pick is one of the rare exceptions for me in that it's not only a remake I like, but one I feel is better than the original. It's also great for pulling a prank on your sister, immediately after watching, if you happen to have two separate home phones.

      The Ring opens with two teenage girls talking about a supposed videotape that happens to kill you seven days after watching it. When it turns out that one of those girls watched the tape one week ago, she is mysteriously killed. Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts), that ill-fated girl's aunt, is a journalist who has decided to investigate the matter, especially after her son Aidan (David Dorfman) started drawing pictures of strange and disturbing visions. She travels to the same cabin where her niece saw the tape and watches it herself. That's when she receives the same call that she'll die in seven days. She turns to her ex Noah (Martin Henderson), an expert in video technology, for help, but he's convinced the tape is nothing more than a hoax... but is it?

      This film is partly why I always make sure where I live uses city and not well water. For the most part, remakes have bored me. They tend to be that kid in the candy store scenario where it's, "Hey, we got better technology now, so let's ramp everything up!" There are exceptions where the remake exceeds the original: The Thing, Inglourious Basterds, Ocean's Eleven, The Fly, not many people realize Ben-Hur was actually a remake, and this film, The Ring. The Ring is an extremely rare exception in that it's a remake of the Japanese original film Ringu and 99.9999999999% of the time I'm favoring the Japanese original 'cause no one's better at creeping the shit out of you than the Japanese. Here it all comes down to the cast and director Gore Verbinski. Together, Gore Verbinski and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli provide a visual style, both beautiful and haunting at the same time, that gets under your skin and leaves you unsettled. Naomi Watts is great in the first movie I ever saw her in and Martin Henderson and the never disappointing Brian Cox deliver solid supporting work as well. David Dorfman may be putting it on a bit thick with his "We get it. You're messed up." performance, but any flaws that may be found there is made up for through Daveigh Chase, who's able to make me never want a daughter while hardly uttering a word. With Tom Duffield's top-notch production design and Hans Zimmer's chilling score also on display, The Ring is a story that may be cliche, but its primary goal is to make sure you need a new pair of pants by the time it's done and it succeeds in doing so. Despite the downside in that following this movie we got a slew of crappy Japanese horror film remakes here in the States, this is a sharply directed, well edited and acted horror film sure to have you peeking away at the corner of the screen as you anxiously await the next scare.