I always thought the biggest crime a horror film could commit was to not be scary. Then I saw Rings. I wish this film were just “not scary”. Not only is there not a single jump worthy moment in the entire film, but the third – and we can assume the final – entry in the Ring series is utterly boring.

Set in the present, F. Javier Gutierrez’s film ignores the great gift it has been given. The film does not take advantage of this social media age. For those who have not caught on by now, the concept in these films is that a character watches a weird VHS tape, gets a call that says they will die in seven days, and seven days later they die. Now there is one way to survive this: make a copy of the tape and show it to someone else, thus passing on the curse. So why not digitize the video, upload it online and post it on YouTube? Maybe just email it to a random customer service address? Nah, too easy. So Gutierrez contracts this whole complicated mess where a college professor (Johnny Galecki) buys a VHS player at a garage sale (why?). He then watches the tape inside. Weeks later her has gotten his college students involved and is having them pass the digitized file on to each other in an organized fashion. Anyways, one of his students’ girlfriends (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) gets involved and decides to trace the backstory of the girl in the tape. Sound familiar? Yeah, because Naomi Watts tried the same thing in the last movie. Though this time, instead of tracing Samara’s adopted parents and upbringing, Julia (Lutz) seeks to find the circumstances of her birth.

Anyways, it’s long and boring and somehow the once great Vincent D’Onofrio shows up as a blind priest. There is not a single redeeming quality in this film. The atmosphere is flat and none of the many jump scares are effective. The final minute of the film actually points towards something interesting; a plot that could have successfully worked as a film. Unfortunately, this film will be received so poorly, and perform so poorly financially, that the interesting sequel plot hinted at the end will never come to fruition.

[star v=1]