From the start, this movie seems to not know what it's doing and has some difficulty having to come into its own in the midst of what's already established as a major, well-known franchise.
The very start seems to either subtly undermine the "rules", by having Samara not actually just kill a viewer, but kill hundreds of random bystanders who have not seen the tape as well, which kind of really makes me angry, especially as we see a Samara kill happen later where Samara explicitly does not kill someone who is basically in the same room as a victim but who has not seen the tape.
themovie then sets up this rather convoluted club going on at the protagonist's boyfriend's college wherein a biology professor has a group of students watching the tape, then making copies to get others to watch so they don't die.
Somehow this is supposed to contribute to his research about life after death and the soul, but there's no actual information to gather; you watch the tape, get a prank call, then get attacked and killed 7 days later. No one comes close (or is supposed to) come close to death or to actually trigger Samara's appearance. The only data the professor seems to be gathering is pictures of their warped faces on cameras and occasional body markings.
From there, we get an entire secondary plot involving a NEW The Tape which was hidden in some frames from a copy of the tap, which, apart from the way it was discovered, could essentially be its own completely different movie. It's tie-in with The Ring's story just feels contrived and stupid no matter how you try to justify it.
The NEW The Tape is a retread of the old; a seemingly random assortment of esoteric images and video clips that are revealed throughout the movie to be relevant to the unfolding of the plot.
While the first two movies pretty clearly established that Samara is evil and won't stop, one thing this movie did fairly well was establish a sense of confusion on that count. It's never clear whether the protagonist is being lead along by Samara or by Evelyn, and it's simultaneously unclear if she really was evil, or if it was some manner of "curse" or a matter of "release mah spirit and i'll stop", but as the previous movies established, "you knew I was a snake when you took me in"
All throughout the film, there's tons of laughs to be had. Unfortunately for the film, they weren't meant to be funny moments.
Virtually every serious dramatic point is just badly blown by questionable acting, even more questionable dialogue, or overly convenient "random" events, like the completely out of nowhere lightning strike that knocks down a power line to kill a character before they can reveal some important information to the protagonist. That moment was probably one of the most hilarious.
Over all, the story is passably bland but what really makes this movie stand out is the laughably awful execution of just about everything. Every single important dramatic moment either fell flat or was unintentionally hilarious, and every single jump scare, EVERY jump scare, was hilarious and laugh-inducing. I haven't laughed at a horror movie this much in at least 4-5 years.
The very start seems to either subtly undermine the "rules", by having Samara not actually just kill a viewer, but kill hundreds of random bystanders who have not seen the tape as well, which kind of really makes me angry, especially as we see a Samara kill happen later where Samara explicitly does not kill someone who is basically in the same room as a victim but who has not seen the tape.
themovie then sets up this rather convoluted club going on at the protagonist's boyfriend's college wherein a biology professor has a group of students watching the tape, then making copies to get others to watch so they don't die.
Somehow this is supposed to contribute to his research about life after death and the soul, but there's no actual information to gather; you watch the tape, get a prank call, then get attacked and killed 7 days later. No one comes close (or is supposed to) come close to death or to actually trigger Samara's appearance. The only data the professor seems to be gathering is pictures of their warped faces on cameras and occasional body markings.
From there, we get an entire secondary plot involving a NEW The Tape which was hidden in some frames from a copy of the tap, which, apart from the way it was discovered, could essentially be its own completely different movie. It's tie-in with The Ring's story just feels contrived and stupid no matter how you try to justify it.
The NEW The Tape is a retread of the old; a seemingly random assortment of esoteric images and video clips that are revealed throughout the movie to be relevant to the unfolding of the plot.
While the first two movies pretty clearly established that Samara is evil and won't stop, one thing this movie did fairly well was establish a sense of confusion on that count. It's never clear whether the protagonist is being lead along by Samara or by Evelyn, and it's simultaneously unclear if she really was evil, or if it was some manner of "curse" or a matter of "release mah spirit and i'll stop", but as the previous movies established, "you knew I was a snake when you took me in"
All throughout the film, there's tons of laughs to be had. Unfortunately for the film, they weren't meant to be funny moments.
Virtually every serious dramatic point is just badly blown by questionable acting, even more questionable dialogue, or overly convenient "random" events, like the completely out of nowhere lightning strike that knocks down a power line to kill a character before they can reveal some important information to the protagonist. That moment was probably one of the most hilarious.
Over all, the story is passably bland but what really makes this movie stand out is the laughably awful execution of just about everything. Every single important dramatic moment either fell flat or was unintentionally hilarious, and every single jump scare, EVERY jump scare, was hilarious and laugh-inducing. I haven't laughed at a horror movie this much in at least 4-5 years.