The Ring - First 2 minute analysis

The Ring is a 2002 American psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson. It is a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring. The first 2 minutes starts with the Dreamworks logo, and the man fishing from the moon. There is a variantion from the oirginal version of this though, when it is on the man, the moon flashes into a full moon, but the middle is empty. This is the logo of the film.

The First scene then fades in 26 seconds into the scene, the shot is of a Creepy looking house in the dark, the sound is like a staticy sound that the audinece assumes is rain. You then hear someone talking about televisions, it is a girl and has a slightly american accent. It then flicks to a wide shot of 2 girls, one is on a bed and the other is sitting on the floor. You then realise that the girl on the bed is the girl you heard talking about televisions. The lighting is quite dim, and you can see they are staring at something and the way the light on them changes very often suggests that they are watching a television. The camera slowly zooms in on the 2 girls allowing you to see there faces very clearly. This suggests to the audience that these 2 are the main charcters, or they are about to get killed. Then the other girl gives the girl on the bed the remote and asks her to choose something to watch. It flicks to the television and you see it get turned off. It then flicks back to the girls. Up until this point in the film if you didnt know that the film was a horror, you wouldn't be able to tell that the film is a Horror as not much fits into the horror cliches or conventions. But the black haired girl starts to set the scene and tell the other girl a spooky story. It then uses the 180 rule to flick from one girl to the other while the story is being told. This tells the audience that the film is definantly a Horror film. The camera slowly zooms in on the girls as they speak. You can clearly see that the girl on the left seems very scared by the story, it looks as if tears have come to her eyes. She then asks her ffriend where she heard the story from and the friend replies that she doesnt know and asks why. Then the girl says that she has seen the tape. The audience then realises that the girl will die. The other girl tries to tell her its just a story but she doesnt belive her. This is the end of the 2 minutes. There is no music while this is happening just the rain in the background, the television when it is on and the voices of teh two girls. The lighting stays the same throughout the scene, dark to help give off a spooky vibe but light enough so the audience can clearly see the girls faces and expresions. This is quite a good start of a Horror film, as it builds tension within the scene and also hooks the viewer, making them want to stay and watch more.