Dreamworks
Back in 2002, an unsuspecting horror movie ruined the lives of pretty much anyone who mistakenly thought they were just in for a fun time with friends at the theater only to instead develop lifelong phobias of backyard wells, VHS tapes, staticky televisions, girls with untrimmed bangs and being told you have to wait for anything for seven days. The Ring, Gore Verbinski’s exercise in seeing exactly how long it would take before he could convince Naomi Watts to punch a little girl in the face, is now a terrifying horror classic. It was followed in 2005 with a still scary, but not as fetal position-inducing second film from Hideo Nakata – who actually helmed the 1998 scare-fest Ringu, the nightmarish inspiration for the American films as well as a handful of other sequels and spin-offs.
Now, almost 10 years after the last victim popped that unmarked video tape into their VCR, the third American installment is going to drag itself out of the television and wreak havoc on another journalist who’s just trying to do her job by figuring out why all these local kids are melting and molding into strange shapes after watching a mysterious old film. Dubbed The Ring 3D – because the only thing more horrifying than watching Samara throw herself at people full force and steal their souls is feeling like she’s doing it to you – the film is set to be written by Oscar-winning scribe Akiva Goldsman.
Now that’s scary.
Goldsman, who won his Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind and recently penned Insurgent and Winter’s Tale (which he also directed), also executive produced Paranormal Activity 2–4. While he did not write those sequels to the monster of a horror machine, he does have the sensibility to know what works and what doesn’t for the genre. And for those who have seen the completely insane Winter’s Tale, it’s clear that he has some…visions…or perhaps the courage to take creative liberties where necessary, when it comes to reviving a familiar and frightening franchise.
Nothing is known thus far about the plot to the third film, save for that Samara will be returning to make lives difficult for the remaining people who haven’t become wholly suspicious about popping in an unmarked VHS without asking questions (and who also have a functioning VCR at the ready). The Ring 2 ended with Rachel (Watts) successfully getting Samara (Daveigh Chase and Kelly Stables shared the role) to stop possessing her son (David Dorfman). That infamous well, which had apparently been left open (seriously, guys?), gets slammed shut as Samara attempts to escape.
While there’s no word either on if The Ring 3D would employ the same characters from the last two installments – mainly Watts’ Rachel and her son, the central protagonists of the stories – it would be interesting to see them check in on life post-Samara, and now her return. It’s technically been a bit more than seven days, but who’s counting, really?
