The Ring with Joseph Fink

fucking life. You know what would be really bad? What you know? The only way this week could get worse. If I've watched a horse kill itself on a boat, Well, it's gonna happen. So ship the spoilers click. Fine, I think that went well. I think that went Oh yeahs. Seven Days to Live is one of the most um the best, easiest, most iconic. I never get tired of it. Jokes available. Every time I see my dog's bottom teeth,

I'm like, there it is seven days. Just anytime I see something that makes me a little uncomfortable, it's seven days each and every time. I love it. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Darante, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point to inspire a larger conversation. But Jamie, what about little girls crawling out

of TV feminist icon? Samara? Samara? Yea, you joke? But I'm serious? So am I there? Well? Can I tell you what the Bechtel test is? Is that? Love? That? Okay? Not to um explain things to you, but well, I

am the Ring. You are at the Ring. I can't believe I'm spending precious time of my last seven days explaining what the Bechtel test is for the five thousandth time two people who know, maybe this is someone's first episode that Oh my gosh, that would be this would be I think I feel like this would be a really fun point of entry for serious discourse. Yeah, yeah, So what's the Bechtel test? Though? Okay? Alright? Um? The Betel Test is a media metric created by Quirk cartoonist

Alice and Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test. Originally created as a goof for comic strip that she made called Dikes to Watch out For has since become an actual media metric that people use and talk about all the time, such as the versions of this thing and shuch As and we named it the whole show after it, and we do that and sometimes people who are like lying about listening to the show, they're like, wow, I can't believe you talk about that for a whole hour,

and it's like, well, we don't. Um, we talked about it for seven days. Gosh, it for seven whole days, and then we explode. Our version of the test requires that there be two characters of a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue, and it should be some sort of narratively impactful exchange such as ring rings seven days click that I would say would count.

And then the other person says oh, no, oh, ship, yeah, or whatever it is that Amber Tamblen says, uh, oh, my gosh, that is Amber tamble In. How did I not piece that together? Oh my gosh. There's so many two thousand two treats. It's a tracutary board of our our generation's luminaries. All right, um so I think that that covers our housekeeping. We have an incredible episode today, a movie we've referenced many times because due to seven

days being timeless reference. But today we're talking about The Ring gor Verbinski Style two thousand two, starring Naomi Wah and a horse and the girl who is the voice of Lelo and Lelo and Stitch. And we have an incredible guest. I did not look at the IMDb. Oh, the facts are fun and there's more to come. But we have an incredible guest, We really do. He is an author and the creator of Welcome to night Vale. It's Joseph Fink. Hi, thanks for having me, Welcome, Welcome.

It wasn't until this watch that I realized the title of the movie is a pun ring ring ring, ring ring. That is, I guess, I don't know what is the other well, I guess the ring on the poster is the ring of you being trapped in a well. Yeah, before you die, you see the ring. That's that's the only version I had understood. And it wasn't until I was reading I AMDB Trivia that whoever wrote that IMDb trivia was like by the way. Also, this movie is deep.

You're like, I actually did need that. It turns out, look, this movie is deep. There's so many layers and and and deep like a l now that okay, now I'm thinking harder than ever. I love this movie so much. And uh, Joseph, I am very excited to hear more about your history with this movie because you requested this movie specifically. Yeah, a huge mistake on my part because it meant having to watch it again and now now you're on thin fucking ice for the next seven days.

Best of, Like, this movie was so deeply traumatizing for me as a teenager, Like it genuinely made my life worse for like a couple of years after watching it. Just I think it was thinking back, I think a lot of it is it's the first actual horror movie

I'd ever seen. I think that's probably true for a number of people my age, Like, I don't know, it's just it wasn't really marketed the way most horror movies were marketed before then, Like it was just sort of a I went and saw it on a date because it was what was in the movie theater kind of thing, and then it was just straight up like scary, and I had never really watched a straight up scary movie before, and I didn't sleepwell for quite a while afterwards. How

did the date go? It was like a long term girlfriend. It went five. Wait, you didn't start watching horror movies until you were of like dating age. I mean I was like fifteen, maybe fourteen fifteen somewhere, and they're doing the math. Um. Yeah, I mean I watched like my mom was very into like nineteen fifties movies, so most of my childhood I watched. I watched like the original Invasions of the Body Snatchers. I watched like a lot of the alien movies of like It Conquered the World,

It Invaded the World. There was there was a number that had very similar titles, but I had real strong opinions about which we're better. Yeah. It's funny because now watching this again, I think if I had encountered it for the first time now, I wouldn't have thought much about it because now, like of what I watched as horror movies, it's kind of the only kind of movie I watch anymore. But I as a at the time, I had never seen a movie. Um just be so

mean to me before. Yeah, this movie is punishing. This movie does feel like it's hitting you. I feel like, given your body of work growing up watching fifties alien movies, um it tracks. It makes sense to me. I was barely allowed to watch TV and then yeah, when I was, it was almost always movies from the fifties. Jamie, what's your history relationship with the Ring? I feel like maybe I've told the story on the podcast before. I definitely

told you, Caitlin, this movie ruined my entire life. Uh when when I thought this was like definitely the first. Like I think I'd seen like spooky movies, but I hadn't seen a scary movie. I didn't see this in theaters. I would have seen it shortly this movie came. It was in like third grades, third or fourth grade, I think like third grade, and we we rented a copy of it. My older cousin, Tammy, rented a copy of this.

She and my aunt and uncle like live in this old, crusty, terrifying house in Brockton, Massachusetts that is like over three years old. A ton of people have died at the house. There's all these scary stories about the house. In her childhood bedroom and like as an adults, like that can't be true. And then I checked with my aunt. She's like, no, that's true. There was like a woman who was like blocked in the closet and then she tried to get out, but she couldn't and she died. And that happened in

some time in the nineteenth century. And just like all these scary things happened at the house, I was afraid of the house, sleeping over. I didn't love it. My cousin loved living in a haunted house and wanted to scare me. And so we watched this tape and it was the I think it was the only Did you watch it on VHS? The ring? Yes, yes, we would have rented this from the nearby blockbuster on VHS, which makes me feel nice thousand years old. It was so scary.

It was the scariest movie I'd ever seen. I was crying during the movie. I was begging her to tart it off, and she was like just loving every second of it. We finished the movie. It's late at night. I'm still crying, and then I think Tammy is like, oh, this is actually a bad situation for me. Now I'm no longer having fun. So then we watched another VHS which would have been I remember very clearly, She's like,

I know what to do for a palate cleanser. And then we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, another two thousand two classic, because she was like, you'll feel better if we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding. But unfortunately it didn't work. And um, she still makes fun of me because I called my dad at like and I was like, you need to come get me. I have seven days to live and I need to I need to be with my family. UM. Traumatizing movie that I've

returned too many times over the year. But I haven't seen this movie and it does make me uncomfortable to watch still. But this time, preparing for this episode and also watching I didn't watch the entire original Ring Goo, but I watched specific scenes and I wanted to know what the differences were between the two movies. But watching at this time, I was like, oh, I guess I was just ten years old when I watched this. I guess It's like I didn't be myself and I slept fine,

glad to hear it. So in that way, being a grown up rocks all right. What's your history with this movie? So I was. I saw it for the first time when I was a sophomore in college, which would have been two thousand five. Friend of the cast, my best friend j T was like, you haven't seen the Ring.

You gotta see the Ring, And so we watched it in his apartment because we would do this thing where we would watch scary movies together and then both get really freaked out and then I would have to like stay with his apartment, sleep in bed with him for like a week because we were both like, oh no, the hills have eyes are going to get us. The Ring is out to get you know, so that hill is a little too silent for my liking exactly, So

we did that with the Ring. He knew what was coming, so he played a little prank on me where after the movie was over, I was like, I feel horrible, I'm scared, but also I have to go to the bathroom. And then when I came back from the bathroom, he had shut all the lights off in the room and then turned the TV on to like static, so it was just like static on the TV. And then he disappeared, like I didn't know where he was turns out he was hiding in the closet and then he came out

and scared me. But it was so freaky, and I was like, oh my gosh, I saw the movie The Ring and now I only have seven days to live, and and then I it's so effective. Is there anyone who's seen this movie who does not have a like trauma traumatory? It truly is like a trauma and dishing movie. We should Yeah, we should just like open a hotline for people to call in and say what happened when they watched The Rings. But then people will call us and the phone will go bring Ring and then we'll

only have seven days to live again. Tomorrow we'll call yeah. Um. So I was like, I never need to see this movie again. I'm there's no reason for me to watch it. So I went another I don't know whatever seventeen years without seeing it, and then here we are talking about it. So I had to watch it again. I watched a couple of nights ago. As soon as I finished watching it, a fly started buzzing around my apartment. Okay, so the

fly from the VHS tape found its way into my apartment. Also, my doors started making creepy, like creepy, creaky sounds like my apartment was just like being all weird and the fly was buzzing around and now I'm gonna die soon. You're you only have a couple of days, but it's a good thing that you're done. Um. Spending up podcast days a wonderful way to spend my time. And normally I watch a movie twice to prep for an episode,

but I could only stomach this movie once. And I was also going to watch Ringu to just kind of yeah, like you said, Jamie, note the differences and similarities. But I was like, no, I simply cannot got you. I'm ready to die, so it's fine. My extra credit is I started watching the ring To, which I had actually never seen. I watched probably like the first twenty minutes. It's fine, is it? Is it the same cast? Mostly it's Naomi Wats and it's the same kid. Everyone else

is different. Um, it might have been probably it's the same girl playing tomorrow. I'm actually not sure. But it's directed by the guy who directed Ringo. They brought in They brought in the Japanese director to direct the sequel. It just doesn't have that same like intensity of the first one. It's a little more like, let's dive into so far as background some more and find out more about her childhood. And I think I had I didn't

have a ton of questions. Um at the end of the first movie, I will say, the kid from the Ring is just not doing it for me. The little girl or the little boy. The little girl is life changing. Yeah, I know that. The little boy, but we'll talk about that. The little boy he now works as a lawyer for Congress. By the way, he's current shop. I look, I'm like, what does he doing these days? And he works as like a lawyer for one of the committees. Good for him.

He's a ranking member of Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia. So he lived the seven days and that is encouraging goodness? All right, should be Are are you good? Who was at your door? Was it someone I don't know? Someone was at my door and it was a stranger and he told me I have seven days to live. So how many times can we make the joke? Okay, we'll never get old to me. Should I do the recap? We'll go from there. Let's do it. Actually, let's take a break. Let's put this phone call on hold and

then we'll come right back. And we're back. So we open on two teen girls flipping through the channels. One girl is Becca and she's like, Hey, have you heard about this video tape that kills you when you watch it? This woman comes on screen, and then when the video is over, your phone rings and a voice says you will die in seven days, and then seven days later you die. And then the other girl, Katie. I think that's Amber tam Amber Tam yes, with the chunkiest highlights

I've ever seen in my entire life. So two thousand two. Yeah, She's like, oh no, I watched the tape and then she pretends to die to play a prank on Becca. But then a few minutes later, Katie is walking around her house. The TV comes on, there's attic, then we see an image of a well and then Katie does die. Yeah, And then when they flash back to show you what Katie's face looked like when she died. Scary. I feel like that's the thing most people remember from the movie,

even more than the little girl, is Katie's face. They wrecked amber Tamblin, they wrecked her in her Joane of Arcadia era and everything past did not like it. Uh. Then we cut to Rachel Keller. That's Naomi Watts. She's an investigative journalist. We meet her and her son, who has made some creepy drawings depicting his cousin Katie's death. So Katie, who died in the first scene is Rachel Keller's niece, her son Aiden's cousin m and she died

three nights ago. Now, which Rachel is stunningly jill about. She doesn't give a shit. She grieves quietly or possibly not at all. There I want to favorite. I get like horror movie tropes as like the teacher who's like these drawings, like because it's always just like, yeah, kids suck at art, and every teacher knows that kids are famously bad artists. But she's like, I don't know, could be it could be a sign your son is just blowing it at kids doing creepy things in horror movies.

Is the scariest thing to me of all the like subgenres of horror or all the horror tropes, the scariest thing to me is creepy kids doing creepy things, and it's happening in this movie. So he's making these creepy drawings and Katie died three nights ago, but Aiden's teacher is like, but Aiden drew these last week. Is if I'm like, got a life, lady like students, how are you keeping this close track on Aiden? I don't know.

But also Naomi, Naomi Watts is being super weird and that seeing in a way that isn't called back where she's just suffered. What is it? Extremely imagine if your niece died like that and then three days later you're like, well, I don't know, She's life happens. She's like talking on the phone to her boss and like making a literate of comments about like calling him a prick or something like that, and I'm just like, your beloved niece just

died brutally. Anyway, My question about the teacher is did she get those drawings, be like wow, these are sucked up and then sit on them for a week just in case somewhere? What did she know she had a special like Aiden scary drawings folder like ready to go. Maybe she just had it for every kid and then she's like, all right, all these kids are creating absolute garbage.

I'm just gonna wait for it to seem like evidence that's I had to check the opsius because it was like, Naomi Watts is not acting like she and Amber Tamplein were related, Like she's true because she was like my she called him my son's best friend instead of her niece, which is just like it was very bizarre. Also, I was like, Oh, this cousin of his who's also his

best friend. I did not make the connection that would have been Katie because Katie is a teenager in Aiden is like, I don't know seven, So I'm like, that happens with cousins, doesn't What are you talking when you're like best friends? Like that age difference thing? Well, I mean, I understand that they would have been close, but like, I don't know. The point is Aiden calls his mom by her first name. I don't like that. Yes, I

feel like that is done. Just that was supposed to be scary, right or was that just sort of how is that just what Seattle is like, I think we're supposed to be like Aiden is creepy, which he is. I feel like I'm going to disagree with the statement you made earlier. I think this kid nails it, Like he is so off putting in the right, But is he trying to be I don't. I mean, look this, the kid from the Ring is going to take me to court. Now I'm gonna go to He's a lawyer

who can represent himself. He's gonna suck me up. Yeah, okay. So then Rachel and Aiden go to Katie's funeral. Um Katie's mom slash Rachel's sister. I don't even know if we learn that they're sisters, but I think so. They're both blonde. I think we're supposed to. Yeah, So she asks Rachel if she could try to figure out what happened because doctors can't explain why or how Katie died.

And then that's when we see the shot of Katie's face and it's all disfigured and scary looking, and that's like pulled directly from Ring Goo like that the Japanese movie. The sections of it I've seen because it's streaming for free to to be for all you to be heads out there, Uh, you can watch it for free on tub right now. And it's also on shutter. Yes, it's okay, So if you have if you have money, it's on shutter.

If you have to be and Shutter has like the entire Ringo Japanese series, like all like seven no ways or something. Kidding, I still haven't subscribed to Shutter. It's like one of my holdouts for for no reason. I've got seven dollars. I could do it. Do it. You've got seven dollars and you've got seven days, Jamie, so make it dollar for each day, baby. And and if you've only got seven days to live, this is just

becoming an ad for Shutter. But if you've got seven days to live, you can't blow it watching ads on to Be and there's so many ads on two B, so I think you get a seven day free trial when you sign up for Shutter. Speaking of seven days, Shutters should sponsor us. Clearly we are good at it. And uh, Joseph introduced it so smoothly into the conversation.

And when you do watch to Be this um. When I was watching Ringo, it was interrupted several times by the same Fabrize commercial on a loop for seven minutes. So seven is really the number of the episode? Uh yeah it is. But the but the the imagery in the in the first Ringo movie is so scary, so so scary. I got maybe five minutes into Ringo, and then I was like, I cannot simply cannot do this to my brain and my feelings, so I stopped. I

respect that. My report from The Ring Too is that it repeats the exact same scare of the teenager with a fund up face at almost the exact same point in the movie. Really, it basically starts the same way, and then it like starts with two teenagers, one of them gets killed by the ring girl, and then Naomi Watts finds the kid and the kid has the face very similar structure. Did she care this time or is she like still not worried about it? I mean she

she like seeks it out this time. He's not related to her. She like she basically hears there's a teenager with a weird face, and she's like, wait a second, I know this. I will travel. I like that that. Gorver Binsky, this is just kind of his like warm up lap before he starts directing every Pirate of the Caribbean movie, Like less than a year after The Ring he's just directing Jeffrey rush as a ghost when a whole series of kind of terrible movies starring Johnny Depp.

Because he went from straight from that to like, was it ringo in the Lone Ranger? It was just like that was his next fifteen years. Yeah, he which is a different kind of course. I would say he did rango. He should have been doing ringo. WHOA makes you think? I was also trying to make a rango ringou joke, but I couldn't get there. So thank you Amy for doing the work. I drank some cold brew. I'm good together. Wow. Okay, so what happens next? Um Rachel now starts trying to

investigate Katie's death and she talks to Katie's friends. Adam Brodie is there and he tells her about this tape that kills you when you watch it. He's in it for forty five seconds. They just had some downtime on the O C or Gilmore Girls, whatever he happened to be starring on at the time. And he's like, sure, I'll be in the ring for seven seconds. Is it allowed to like Adam Brodie? I hope so, because I

like him. I hope he has not done anything bad. Okay, I'm a fan, Okay, I just I'm like, if you've been famous for more than twenty years and it's a chance that, like the chances, just it becomes a kind of a scary situation. But I love Adam Brodie. Just just never google, just never, never google Adam Brodie crimes. So then Rachel pokes around Katie's room and finds a stub for photos that she was getting developed. So Rachel

goes and picks up the photos looks through them. We see Katie, her boyfriend Josh, and two other friends all on a camping trip. Everything seems normal, but then Rachel comes across a photo that shows all of their faces really blurry and distorted. So Rachel continues investigating and discovers that Katie, Josh, and the two other friends have all died on the same night and at the same exact time, ten PM. So scary, very scary. Yes, it's scary. Yes.

So then so then Rachel goes to Shelter Mountain Inn where the teens stayed on this camping trip in a cabin, and the inn lends out VHS tapes and she notices one tape in particular on the shelf with no case, so Rachel snatches It's menacing. I wonder if people who did grow up with VHS is understands the menacing nature of an unmarked VHS tape. I don't know. I don't know. Let's ask gen Z thoughts. I mean, we can get

to this in the discussion. But I just am fascinated by how much of this plot is built around technologies that not only are defunct now, but they went defunct within like two years of this movie coming out. Right, everything this movie depends on is gone two years later. Yeah, this this maybe the last, the last movie that I remember having a VHS related plot point, and they really well, then I guess it because this movie isn't as scary if it's a blue right, it's a due right though.

I mean that's a ring in and of itself. That's a different kind of ring hunted DVD menu like the well, isn't there that horror movie called VHS that came out? What year did that come out? There's a whole series of them. Their excels there. I love, I love those.

I feel like those are a little more like banking on like VHS nostalgia if I'm remembering, because now I feel like gen Z does know what VHS tapes are because everything is a nostalgia machine now, So like there's VHS is on what that's I'm like on Stranger Things, like the kids are watching, but this movie has it has VHS, it has photo developing, like the whole plot point of the photo developing. She works for a newspaperine,

she gets answering machine messages. She takes photos with a digital camera like it's everything in this movie is gone. So soon after it comes out, she does Google. Something she doesn't but the interface, but then she's like, I gotta go. I actually the encyclopedia is more efficient. She's like, I need to go to the library and find a book called America's Lighthouses, and that's what leads her to

the information she needs. Anyway, this is maybe right up there with one of my favorite research scenes in all of cinema, because she'd uses Google for exactly one second and then she bails on Google, and he looks at a book full of lighthouses and gets the information she needs. It rocks. I love it. So she has gone to the end. She snatches the VHS tape with no case. Then she checks into Cabin twelve, which is the same cabin the teens stayed in. She plays the tape in

the cabin. So we now as the audience see the entire tape. There's static, there's a ring of light, a ladder, a chair, a creepy girl with long hair, Mommy looking in the mirror and then saying hello there. I hadn't rewatched the video itself in a long time, and it did give me some comfort that watching it back as an adult. Um, it's goofy as Noah says, well, we're about to meet Noah. But he's like, it's very student film, and it's like, yeah, it is. It just feels like

a little like a kid's haunted house. It's like, here's separate fingers. Yeah, it's very like here's some scary stuff. You watch it in line for like a roller coaster and they're like, oh no, what's gonna happen? I like that. I I did crack up when the mom is looking at the mirror and then she turns around and then it cuts to like new scary thing. It's just kind of scary, vaguely menacing b roll Um. Yeah, it's a bunch of mostly disturbing images. I still found the tape

a little scary, but I'm a big old baby. So she watches it and Rachel is freaked out, and right then the phone rings in the cabin. She picks it up and it's a young girl's voice saying seven days. That passes the back dol test, caitalen, it passes. She responds with gasp, that's a meaningful and is there a more meaningful exchange ring seven days? Click? Come on, I don't. I don't think so. I mean, not to get ahead of ourselves, but I think there's an even more meaningful

scene that passes the Bechtel tests in this movie. Well, yeah, well we'll we'll get there. But is it it passes? It passes a bunch with Amber Tamblin as well. But okay, but we'll get there, I mean literally the opening lines. Yeah, okay. So we cut to Thursday, a k A. Day one. Rachel has noticed that pictures of her face are all blurry and distorted the way the teens faces were in

those photos. And then Rachel goes to her friend Noah played by Martin Henderson for help and she tells him about the tape and the four teens who have died. He wants to see the tape and he watches it, despite Rachel telling him not to then the phone rings for him, but no one picks it up, and Rachel deletes the answering machine message. Um. She wants to know who made the tape where it came from, and Noah is like, Okay, make me a copy and I'll help

you figure all this out. So she makes a copy. Bake, mistake, big mistake. You're not going to want to make a copy of the ring tape. Well, if you see it, you do want a copy, I know, but I'm on Samaraw's side, So that's where I'm coming from. Sure, don't make a copy of the Ring. I also love Um here's a useless comment. Martin Henderson's hair is so funny to me in this movie. He's got a bit of a bob going on. He's got a bit of a bob and he's got He's also has some kind of

chunky highlights. He and Ever Temple and have sort of the same stylist. Yeah, yes, I think it's nice. It is. It is nice. So then it's Friday day two. Rachel gives Noah the copy she made of the VHS tape and he's like, why are the time code numbers all messed up? That's what's going to tell me where the tape came from, and now I don't know, and it's like, I'm sorry, what are you talking about? None of that

made sense to me. So he's like trying to figure out where who made the tape and where it came from. I don't understand how he would have been able to do that based on the time code. Anyways, I hadn't thought very hard about that. Then Noah's assistance slash girlfriend comes in. Rachel's like, I gotta leave, and so as she's leaving, she sees a ladder propped up against the wall, the same ladder from the tape. Question. I love his girlfriend. She's she's a bit of a she's she's a little

hot topic. There's a little hot topic flavor going on there, and Nan, we wats it like, I have to get happy. So a question to think about, excuse me, moving forward through the rest of this plot is at this point, she has copied the tape and shown it to someone. So a question is, why does anything else in this movie happen just given what we learned at the end. It's a really really good question. I see your point,

thoughts my thought. I mean, at this point even though the movie should end here, it can't end here because we haven't gotten to Brian Cox. So unfortunately the movie does have to continue for that reason alone. It does have to go on. My in world theory is that Samara does actually want someone to dig into her story and kind of recognizes that maybe this person is able

to do it. Um. That's sort of how I justify it to myself, is that it kind of keeps happening, not because she hasn't fulfilled the curse, but because Samarrow is like, he come visit my island and talk to my dad. Yeah, right, Like she's she's changing, She's making the rules. She can change the rules as she goes, and she I mean, ultimately Samara wants she's just trying to go viral. You know, she's as gonna say she wants a mummy, but yeah, she's trying to She's an

influencer and she's trying to get followers. I believe it. I I this movie does work for me on the on the mommy horror front. I feel like she just she just wants to be a understood by an adult woman who's not going to push her into a well for example, fair Yeah. Um, Okay, so now it's day

three Saturday. Rachel scrubs through the tape again does something that I also don't understand, but she kind of moves the recorded image that she's able to see on screen, kind of moves it to the side where there's another image of a lighthouse in one of the scenes. So she has discovered this lighthouse in the tape, and then just not, that's not how tapes work, right, Like the right, I literally wrote down, maybe that is how that works.

Like I just like, I mean, maybe if the if the original footage was shot in like Pano vision, but the aspect ratio and the t V is only like four three, maybe you can do a film buff. She had really high tech, she had great gear, she's shooting

in six nine, but the TV's only four three. So I was like maybe, but I do not understand, and I think the like the movie is just like relying on the audience to assume, yeah, I guess this could maybe be a thing, or just be like so focused on their own mortality that by that point they're like, sure, great, fine, I don't have time to ask these questions, right, I have to call my mom. So it's Sunday, day four.

Now that Rachel has seen this lighthouse in the tape, she's trying to figure out where this lighthouse might be via a library book that I mentioned earlier called America's Lighthouses. I want that book. She finds what she thinks is this lighthouse on a place called Moesco Island, and then she starts to piece some other things together. Um a photo of some people standing in out of this lighthouse includes a woman named Anna Morgan, who is also seen

in the tape. So this is scary, Mrs Scary. Rachel then looks through some newspaper archives and discovers that Anna was a horseback rider, but a bunch of horses on this island died mysteriously, and then Anna Morrigan started having hallucinations and then died by suicide. Then we cut to Monday, day five. Rachel has a scary dream where she sees

the little girl with dark hair. This scene, by the way, points to my theory about what's happening here, because what Samara does in this dream is she shows her the hospital that they put her in. It's she's kind of pushing her in a direction of information rather than just haunting her here. I mean, that's how I've understood the movie that like Samara wants people to and like, you know, you survive by making a copy, because you know, she wants the spread of this information to happen. She wants

to go viral, as you said, she I do. I uh. The forthcoming twist that it's like, even when people know Samara's story, that does not quench her rage. She's like, well, now you know, unfortunately, um I still want to kill you, but thank you for hearing me out. They like something like about Samara getting you all the information and then killing you anyways is just so incredible. She's like, I gave you all the clues, Mr. Police, but also you have to share. Yeah, this is a reporter, but also

you have to share the clues with other people. The thing is like Samara needs to at least wait for, you know, Rachel to get to press, like come on, and that takes more than seven days in two thousand two probably, um okay. So then Rachel discovers her son Aidan watching the tape, the phone rings, the whole thing. She's like, oh no, now my son is going to

die in seven days. And then she calls Noah and she's or Noah calls her I think, and she's like, oh, Noah, he watched the tape and he's like who did, And she's like our son, and we're like twist alert. Noah and Rachel made a baby together. Completely missed that. I think both times watching this did not realize he was the dad. It's such a useless twist that I also forgot when I want but um, I was like, okay, well,

good for that creepy lawyer kid. Like well, prior to that, you see some scenes where Rachel and Noah have kind of weird interactions based on what you understand their relationship to be, which is like friends and maybe like colleagues or former colleagues. But then they like have these conversations where it's like you think I'm a bit and I think you're blah blah blah, and just you know how

I talked to my colleague. Yeah, and then like the scene where his girlfriend walks in and it's a problem and then and then she she she's like, grow up, Noah, and then she storms out and it's like, what is this relationship? And then you find it he sired her. Creepy kid, maybe that's what happened. He got her gregnant,

and now she has a Greg. She's stuck with this little Greg, this creepy Greg who calls her Rachel, Oh my god for the Yeah, this little Greg who won't stop first name assaulting her at any given opportunity, Like it's just okay. So we get that twist. Then it's Tuesday, day six the time, and and we still have an hour left of the movie at this point. So Rachel goes to Moesco Island where the lighthouse is. On the

ferry to the island, a horse gets loose and jumps overboard. Um, which is obvious watching it back, but I think I did not know that was a c g I horse when I was ten, and I was so sad and scared. And that's the image more than some are crawling out of the TV or amber Tamblo scary head. The horse jumping off the boat was where I was like, I'm done, I need to go home, traumatizing. My wife joined me for this watch, and um, I actually I warned her ahead of time because there was just no way she

was watching that scene, no scene for her. It's upsetting. I mean, it's and and It also establishes gor Verbinski boat lore. You're like, now this guy knows how to shoot something on a boat. Soon there will be ghost pirates on boats. Wow. Wow. Okay, So on the island, Rachel goes to speak to Anna's husband, Richard Morgan, who's played by Brian roy Oh my gosh, what a tree. This is definitely the first time I've watched this movie in a post succession world, and it's so fun to

watch Lighthouse Logan roy Um whatever acute himself. I do feel like he's kind of playing the same character both times. A fun fact from the IMW trivia is that he did not audition. They wrote that role for him. Brian, Well, he knocked it out of the park as usual. What what a weird role to write for someone specifically. You're like, you know what, you would be great at, Brian Cox being samaras lighthouse stab right, you know what. I can't wait to watch. But but he does that scene always.

I mean, obviously that seems really really scary when I was a kid, but I didn't know that it was one of our greatest actors doing it. Okay, So Rachel tells Richard Morgan that she thinks the video tape is a message from his his wife, but he's not having any of this and he shooes Rachel away as lighthouse guys are wont to do yeah. Meanwhile, Aidan is back home being completely neglected by his parent parents under he

calls her Rachel. He barely knows her um. He's drawing some creepy pictures over and over again, and Rachel calls him, and he tells his mom over the phone that this little girl talks to him and shows him things, apparently this little girl being Samara. So Rachel then goes to a doctor on the island, Dr Grasnick, who tells Rachel that the Morgan family adopted a daughter, Samara, after which Anna Morgan started hallucinating seeing things and she thought that

Samara was making her have these hallucinations. Shortly thereafter, Anna dies and Samara was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile, Noah is like back on the mainland investigating and he discovers more info on in a Morgan and finds the cover of a different VHS tape, but it's empty. The tape is missing, so he goes to look for it back on the island. Rachel goes back to Richard Morgan's house. Um, the door is open, so she just like goes in

and snoops around. She finds the missing tape that Noah was looking for, and it is of Samaraw. So much tape antics deep in the second act, and it's all tapes, tapes, tapes. This movie people researching things. Yeah, most of the plot exactly. And once you're not scared of the movie anymore, you're like, Wow, this is a lot of busy work that they're doing. What was that high risk busy work? What was that movie where they work at the Boston Globe and they're researching,

they're like investigating priests. Yes, Spotlight, Yeah, this movie is basically Spotlight. Okay. So she finds the missing tape and it is of Samara in a hospital room being questioned by a doctor. Samara is saying that really aggressively to the doctor. I love. The doctor is very unprofessional. He's like, Samaraw, we're here trying to figure out what's wrong with you. I'm like, that's not how you talked to a kid at a children's psychiatric hospital. I hope I know. I

was like, is this doctor a cop? Like, what is happening. He's blowing it. So Samara tells the doctor that her dad doesn't love her and wants her to go away, and then, which I'm sure helps, Then Richard Morgan is right behind Rachel as she's watching this tape, and she's like, you killed Samara, didn't you? And then Richard hits Rachel

over the head. And then he starts kind of carrying on about how Samara is still showing him images whispering in his ear, tormenting him, and then he electrocutes himself today I mean the performance he makes a meal of the electrocution scene. When they had to bring this movie from an R to a PG thirteen, apparently this was one of the scenes that they have like cut this is a PG thirteen movie, it is, and that was

like a big thing. This and then later the murder at the well, we're both radically cut to hit PG thirteen. I do remember this is definitely one of those movies that, like when it was released on like DVD, there was like uncut versions right like there were other I vaguely remember that, but I also definitely did not watch it again. Yikes. Um, Sorry, I was trying to think of a joke because like rings have gems on them, uncut ring, uncut gems. Thoughts, We're with it. If we're on our way, We're on

our way. Thank you, thank you so much. I think I didn't see this movie when it came out in theaters in two thousand two because Lord of the Rings was coming out and I was like, that's the only ring I'm interested in. How badly do you think this movie suffered from ring exhaustion of right? People like, we've we've had enough down from Lord of the Rings. That is very funny. Yeah, um okay. So Richard electric cutes himself. Then Noah shows up at this house on the island.

He and Rachel go into the barn on this property. They discover a room where Richard apparently kept Little Samara while Anna was having mental health issues. And then under the wallpaper in this room, they discover an image of a tree that was like burned into the wall and Rachel recognizes the tree. She's like, oh, it's at Shelter Mountain Inn, where Katie and her friends camped and watched the tape originally. It's also definitely just the tree from

the six ft under opening credits. I have no idea if that's true. It's just looks exactly like it. It feels like it. Tho, yeah, they copy pasted. We have six feed under would have been on already at that point, right, don't remember. I think it looks like the White Tree from Gone Door from Lord of the Rings, Return of the And we've got our ring head over here. So then we cut to Wednesday, day seven. Oh, it's the last day. The stakes are high and it's hump day.

Yeah it is um all right, that's the end of the job. Rachel and Noah go to Shelter Mountain Inn. They go to Cabin twelve, where they discover a well under the floorboards. Then Rachel is knocked into the well by some supernatural force. Noah goes for help, and while he's gone, the heavy stone lid kind of slides over

the top of the well to trap Rachel inside. The well from this movie is on the campus because of this movie was shot between actual Seattle area and a few locations in our area in southern California, and it was shot the well itself is from California. It's I think season chel Islands, okay, and one of our nation's worst boyfriends drove me there once, um, and it was really exciting. And and I don't know if we're going to go on a field trip there, Jamie, maybe take

some pictures put them on Instagram. I'm well, I'm willing it to What if we peed in some are as? Well? Is what I want to throw out there? How hard would it be to pee in the well? Is it like I remember it being? It's a bit, I mean it has to be. It's like not. You can't see a building, you know, watch YouTube video. I don't think you can get to it. It's behind a lot of fencing. Um. As I mentioned to you when we were talking about this episode, I grew up ten minutes from that campus

and so near one of the filming locations. Did not help things. Right, That you lived and the well no les the where the ring originates. Shocking that you lived, shocking, and you're still with us. So, so Rachel is still in the well, and while she's down there, she sees Samara in the well with her. She grabs Rachel and shows her like a vision of Samara's mother, Anna Morrigan,

throwing Samara into the well. And then the last thing that Samara ever saw was this ring of light right before the well was stealed shut with like the heavy stone lid. Then Rachel finds Samara's skeleton in the well and she's like cradling it. We cut to Rachel out of the well. Apparently Noah went to get help and saved her, and then Rachel realizes that some was in the well for seven days before she died, hence the

you have seven days to live. And it seems like Rachel and Noah will not die because discovering the truth about Samara set them free. But then you check the rent on and you're like, oh no, there's still twenty minutes, right, So then Rachel and Noah go back home. Rachel talks her son Aidan in and it seems like maybe Rachel and Noah are going to rekindle their romance. This was just a long elaborate parent trap from Weirdday Kid. Aiden,

Oh love it. So the next morning, Rachel tells Aiden that she helps that little girl, and Aiden freaks out. He's like, you weren't supposed to help her. She never sleeps. This will keep going. God. That line is good where he's like you, you don't get it. She never sleeps and you realize what he means. That is just I genuinely think that's great writing. It's very scary. So then we cut to Noah's place, Static comes on his TV.

There's a shot of the well. Then we see Samara crawling out of the well and then crawling out of his TV. Meanwhile, Rachel is rushing to Noah's place because she, you know, realizes they're still in danger. She burst in and finds Noah dead as hell, Static on the TV. She's freaking out. She burns the tape, but she's like, wait, why didn't I die? Why did he die? And I

didn't What did I do that Noah didn't do? And then she realizes she made a copy of the tape because Samara, you know, she just wanted to be heard. She just wants people to know her story. She wants to go viral. So then she has aiden make a copy of the tape so that he won't die. And then he's like, but what about you know, what are we going to do now? We have to show this to someone such a VHS based thing. You have to make a physical copy of the physical media and that

will save your life. And that's how the movie ends with like now they're like, oh my god, we have to keep spreading the story the end. So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we will come back to discuss. And we're back. While on the break, my wife ambushed me with like, I have a bunch of thoughts on the ring. I have some thoughts do you want to share um? Well, she immediately was like, I think it's about motherhood, and I'm like, I think they already.

She's onto something, but she her interpretation, having we went through this whole thing last year when we had a kid, is Amanda's first few months are rough, and so she thinks the the idea of having a daughter and having her not be who you think she's going to be in putting terrible images in your head is a metaphor for postpartum depression and postpartuming sieting. I like that there definitely.

I am glad to hear that because I was like, it was like this, motherhood is definitely a theme in this movie, but it's like the way it's treated as kind of I couldn't make heads or tails of it in certain moments. I like that, like with Anna Morgan specifically, but I feel like maybe that's why we needed the ring too to give us more information. And then they made a third movie, Rings, which was about the birth father. But Brian Cowhouse dad, we don't have to get into.

I read the Wikipedia summary and I now there's an entire story to her birth that like is why she's an evil child? Whoa this is what where she? Is she from the Seattle area or is she from hell? Um? It's a not not to bring down the mood. It's a bit of a bummer of a story. And she's like born because the priest sexually assaulted the mother and then tried to kill her, and they gave her like

a whole traumatic birth story. Well, if there's one thing that movies like to do, it's over explain why women are traumatized and revel in that trauma and be like, isn't it So doesn't women's trauma make for such a good scary movie. There's a lot of money in that turns out okay, So the so, I mean, maybe that's

a good place to start. I just the background on this movie, as we've already said, it's uh pretty close remake of a Japanese movie from Ringo, which was based on a novel by Koji Suzuki which was influenced by a bunch of scary Japanese folk tales. It's like to let me and and in the all of the Japanese versions of the story, it's her name is Sadako Yamamura, which was rather lazily anglicized into samaraw morgan Um. She's also an adult in the Japanese movies, which seems like

a major difference. Yeah, which I mean it's she's also very scary. I do feel like it's scarier when she's lie Low from Leelo and Stitch with her hair all messed up and what's her name from Spirited Away? Wow, she really was on a terror there for a while. Now. Should a small white girl have been performing those roles?

Probably not, but probably not this. I mean it is like the question with this remake is why does it need to exist when it's very very close to the Japanese version, and it because it is just a completely whitewashed version of a famous Japanese story in English, when it's like you could have just released Ringo with the subtitles and it would have worked just as well. Yes, yeah, uh,

this is a movie so normally for episodes. I have like pages of notes and thoughts that I've a key umulated, and I don't know if it's just because this movie freaks me out a lot and just makes my brain

not work as I'm watching it. But the only thing I wrote in my notes is Aidan calls his mom Rachel, and that was my big takeaway, which is a little scary, and it also just feels like kind of, um, no, no disrespect to Seattle, but I'm like, I could just see kids in Seattle kind of just doing that and having that be a normal thing to do up there. They're just on like very curt terms with their parents. Um, they're peers, They're peers. I think there's a lot to

talk about with this movie. I mean, especially around the subject of like motherhood. I feel like this movie and this franchise, or at least Ringo as well, like kind of um manages to subvert a lot of horror mommy tropes by giving Rachel a really so I mean, like a really strong connection to the story because it's like she's investigating the death of her niece, which she does, which I keep forgetting because I don't know if Naomi Watts was told just like I was not seeing the grief.

But whatever, everybody are differently. Sometimes you have to If this movie was remade now, it would be a podcast. It would not be Um, she Naomi wants to be playing a podcaster and um, we would have to watch that. Yeah. But yeah, I guess I wanted to talk about how motherhood is explored because I feel like in a lesser movie, sometimes in horror, anders in movies in general, it's like, well, of course she needs to like figure out what's going on with Samara, because that is what a mother does.

And like there's this in this little mommy alert that goes off inside you and you have to, you know, do the mommy thing. I feel like we see that all the time in sci fi. Uh see it in horror, you see, I mean you see it kind of across the board. But the Moofy, I feel like, explains really well, why just doing what she's doing. And also she's like she's you know, she's a single mom, and um, she and Aiden around a first name basis, so she's not necessarily mother of the year. And um, I liked that

that's important representation. Yeah, I mean I appreciated that Rachel's character is an active participant in the story in the way I mean, it depends on what sub genre of horror you're examining. I think slasher movies are maybe the worst at this as far as like, well, there's just gonna be a bunch of horny teen girls and they're going to have sex and then they're gonna get murdered, and we do we do, uh, lose a horny teen right at the top of the movie. We do, yeah,

and then yeah. Female characters in slasher movies are just usually not allowed to be very active in terms of, you know, figuring out a way to escape or to fight back or anything like that, with of course the exception of The Final Girl, which is obviously very characteristic

of the genre. But at least Rachel is, you know, actively investigating the mystery and choices she makes and discoveries she makes push the story forward and ultimately, well, I wouldn't say resolve the conflict, because there's the conflict is she doesn't sleep. She doesn't sleep, But what Rachel does allows her and her son Aidan to survive thereby you know, resolving that conflict. So yeah, I you know, she's an active participant in the story, which makes sense. She is

the protagonist. That is how stories work, I know, but that's not necessarily how horror moms are always dreaded. True. One of my notes that I wrote down was, I really, just overall, I think this is actually a very well written movie. Um. Just objectively, I think this movie does a lot of things right. Um. And one of the things it does is it does a structure that horror movies almost never do. And I it's a really good one, which is it's like, um, it's a p I movie

mixed with a horror movie. Like it's about a person solving a mystery, which is a super interesting way to struck Like usually a horror movie is about something coming to a person, but this is about a person coming to a thing. After the Yeah, the only other one I can think of is the very good movie The Empty Man. Oh, I don't know that one. Uh, and it kind of got buried. Um, but it's on HBO

Max question Mark. But it uh, I mean it it's a movie that starts out feeling like a direct rip off of the Ring because it's about a similar like you something happens in three days later you get killed um and a guy starts investigating, but then it ends up going a very very different direction, but it has the same thing of like totally it's a horror but structurally it's just a straight up private detective solving the mystery. Yeah that works for That worked for me for this movie,

and yeah it does mean that. Like I guess when I when I was back on the legacy of of horror mommy's it's usually like, yeah, like things are happening to them and they are trying to avoid things happening. But she, I don't know, she's She's doing all this stuff for so many reasons, like she's trying to avenge her niece question Mark, although I am still convinced she doesn't care. She's on the clock, she's trying to save her son, she's trying to save her baby daddy, she's

like trying to save herself. There's all these different sort of factors and and there's not a ton of like, well, I guess when she goes into the lighthouse, you're like, probably don't go in there, But there's not like the typical like don't go in there because you're acting irrationally in a very horror movie way like she's I don't remember feeling that way, or or on their rewatch either because you're like, well, yeah, she needs to she needs to go and she has to pursue the bad thing,

or yeah, I do appreciate that there's a compelling reason for her to investigate and like go into scary places and because she's like trying to all of the mystery. This won't be any spoilers, but I recently saw Barbarian and in that movie, the main character, who is a woman, keeps going back into the scary place, and you're like, but why she loves going into the scary place. I had so much fun at that movie. He just it was so fun. It's literally the first movie I had

seen in the theater since January. It was the first one that I was excited enough about to be like, all right, I'll go on eleven A. I'm on a Monday. Truly, that's that's so fun I had. I had such a blasted Yeah, no, no spoilers for listeners, but highly recommend she does. She is addicted to going down to the scary place. But ultimately, when Bill scary guard answers the door. In a movie, you aren't supposed to go into the house. Yeah, haven't you seen it? Of course? Well, I also like

have a huge Bill scars Gard crush. I love I knew it, penny Wise, are you joking there? Yeah? There, Look Bill's cars guard. I'm going to show up. I'm gonna show up at the movie and I'm gonna love every second of it. There's also okay, last barbarian comment. There's a scene in which one of the actors, even though the movie takes place in between Detroit and l a inexplicably, one of the main characters wears a hat from a Boston based pickle company. Um, and I cheered

Grillos pickles. Grillos Pickles. Where in the world of this movie did he get that pickles the supermarket? I mean, I Grillos Pickles a Boston institution. Ultimately, when the big one hits, that's how That's how my my my city will be remembered, is where Grillos. We're howking I used to get Like this makes it set me sound like

I'm actually a hundred years old. I used to buy They used to sell Grillos pickles, like near the Park Street stop and you could just get fistful of pickils and then get on the train to some loose pickles on the train. That's disgusting. Okay, I'm learning so much. I also got excited about the Gorilla's hat. I'm so glad I was. I was like, it doesn't make sense for a character who's going between Detroit and l A. But um, look you a grillos hat. It can be.

It can be anything you want. It's first to go back to the motherhood thing. I think there is something really important to the fact that there's the twist that's Tomorrow just is evil, that there there is no thing you can do to make her not evil, that she just wants to hurt people. Because I think there is

this just going a bit off personal experience here. There is this some of this horror to being a parent of there's only so much you can do to help shape someone, like you do your best and you try not to suck it up, but ultimately they're going to become the person they become. And um, I know somebody who's a parent who was like her older kid. She was like, yeah, he just is, Um, he's an asshole, and I don't know what to do about that. Like he's just he's just a huge dick, and like I

don't think I think that's just who he is. And so there's this horror that like, yeah, this person becomes part of your family, but you you only have so much control over what kind of person you're bringing into your family, and it's I just want to clarify, but that my daughter seems great, My daughter seems very cool. So far so good, so far, so good, so far, so good. But like, yeah, this idea that yes, there was a lot of problems with the way she mothered Smarrow,

including throwing her in a well, but Smarrow also sucks. Smarrow, does we have some parenting notes. I do feel like there is this um and maybe this has just been on my mind because there is inexplicably been another entry into the Orphan franchise recently where it's like kids secretly old um. But there is this uh sort of anxiety in movies around adopted children, um, and like, oh, what's

which I am not adopted? I can't imagine if is super fun if you're an adopted kid watching The Ring to be like, oh no, like I brought this kid into my home and something. It's the most wrong child that's ever existed. Um, and like drives her adoptive parents out of their minds and must be killed. Um okay.

So what wasn't clear to me was if tomorrow was like turned out the way she was, where she was like imprinting scary images into her adoptive parents minds because like her dad, Brian Cox was like not wanting to have her because he says something like my wife was never supposed to have a baby, you know, and she had all the Ani Morgan had all these miscarriages, And I was like, was he like doing like abusing his wife and like forcing her to miscarry? Like I wasn't

sure exactly what was happening. And then when like this baby did get adopted, was he abusive towards the baby? And that's why Samara, I wasn't sure how much of like a nature or nurture thing it was to me that wasn't necessarily clear enough in the movie. I don't even know how much it matters for this specific movie. It's not necessarily operating on a lot of logic as most horror movies do not. Is this a ring two thing? Joseph? Yeah, I mean I guess. The sequels make it clear to me.

To me, it's obvious that she's evil, just she's evil, Like that's sort of that's sort of the ending twist is there's nothing you can do. She's just a monster. The sequels make that more literal, like they specifically like her birth mother tried to drown her because she was evil, Like there's she was evil from birth, like I think that's a There's the scene where she's being interviewed and he's like, UM, you don't want to hurt people, do you? And she says, but I do, and I'm sorry and

it won't stop. And I think it's a very clever bit of writing because the first time you hear I don't you don't want to hurt people, do you? And she says but I do, and you interpret it as but I do keep hurting people. Um, And then in the end you they show her face and you realize she's saying, but I do want to hurt people, um, because she's bad to the bone. I really Okay. So I've been thinking about this recently for an unrelated reason.

Have a book with me right called Lady Killers. It's about female serial killers, but more so like the the

media narratives that tend to form around them throughout history. Um, and I do want to cover more women murdering uh and being evil kind of movies on the show, first of all because they're fun to watch it, but also because, um, there is like I think it's like interesting that the Ring franchise sort of goes into this territory of like needing to over explain the evil because around most actual quote unquote evil women who have you know, killed, murdered, burned,

et cetera, there is always this kind of compulsion to be like, but but why and like connecting it to motherhood or connecting it to like a kind of feminine explanation for why she would be driven to kill. And sometimes that is there is some truth to that, but sometimes people are just fucking evil, and um, there is not a highly like you know, socialized reasoning for it.

And so I like that after like being kind of entrenched and stuff like that, the twist that Samara is just evil super worked for me because you get that whole narrative of like, this kid had a really difficult life. They were abused, they had like their parents were way out of their depth. They were murdered by their own mom. All this horrible stuff, and but uh, and yet two things are true. And she's also just evil and like wants to kill people and can't explain why, and that's

just like the reality of the world. And I don't know. I thought it was cool that it's like, I like, this is not a fully formed thought, and so by the time this release releases, I might feel different already. But I do think it it's like fun to see a character like allowed to be evil without there being

this like really intense trauma background explainer. It's fun when people are just evil sometimes when you're watching a movie, I think, especially because in horror movies centering around men being the evil killer, sometimes there will be like a backstory where it's like this is how he got evil, and other times it's like, no, Michael Myers was just born evil. Well, there's there's some that's explored, right, Michael

Myers is origins I don't remember. I think I think you're right though, that it's kind of even when they explore it, like he's just he's very similar to Samarrow, Like they're both these kind of faceless entities that are just born evil and kind of want the world watching this again. I think this is a really well done twist in a movie that is never talked about. When people talk about very good movie twist, this one never

comes up. But it's the only one I can think of where the twist is the thing you think for most of the movie, Like for the most of the movie, they're like samaras evil, and then they're like, actually, she's just misunderstood, and then the twist is actually the first thing you thought was right. Um, It's just I keep coming back to. I just think the writing in this movie is very clever. The structuring of it is just

very smart. And if you're trying to like scare your audience, that is like such an effective way to do it. Is like to get you all the way around to like empathizing with some are early sympathizing with her and you're like, oh, this poor kid, and like I was trying to put myself in the ten year old brain and as scary as the story of the well in the Seven Days and all that ship, like it's really scary,

but it is sort of comforting. When you have the explanation and she's holding the skeleton, You're like, oh, Okay, samar is not going to be scary anymore. But then guess what, bitch, She's gonna be scary forever and yeah, and then it's like, Okay, if you had considered leaving this movie without being absolutely like afraid forever, yeah, like that, like you're saying, just like that. The takeaway is that some some evil is just like truly unstoppable and irrational,

and that is the scariest thing in the world. It is just that people are irrationally evil and want to hurt you, and they can't even tell you why you can't therapy them out of killing you. To be fair, I think that that doctor did a real bang up job of Samara. Yeah yeah, he's like Samaraw, what the funk is wrong with you? Why doesn't Brian Cox like you?

You're like all the question Like it was that just one of the more realistic scenes in the movie, right right, because I mean it's also not to be like Brian Cox is. I'm just like, what what year are these Samara? Like what year does this take place in? Um? I know that like it takes place in the current day in the main narrative, but it just seems like Samaraw's story is so old timey and all of the videos are so old timey, and Brian Cox is like old.

And then you're just like, and Anna Morgan always kind of dressed a little old timey, like almost Victorian era. They look like they're like pioneers. Yeah, like, but but then you're like, well, Brian Cox, isn't that old? That seems maybe a little mean. They figure out at some point that Anna Morgan died twenty eight years ago, I think, is what said, So it would have been in like the sixties or seven early seventies. I can't math right now. Also,

has Brian Cox just not aged since this movie? Or I had the same thought, isn't that But like that's kind of a good scenario if you're an actor, or you're just like, okay, I'm in my old era, so let's just try to like hold this, let's hold the line and like not look. And then at some point I feel like, in a couple of years he's allowed to look really old, and that's the final act. Is

just like great actor, objectively crusty at the edges. So okay, So but this all the summer stuff happens sometime in late sixties or early seventies. From what I understand, I do. I do agree with you Joseph that like the I mean of of what i've like child psychology, Uh, certainly, and the further back you go, there's a lot of blame me, shame, weird stuff that goes on. So it's not like unfortunately it's just childhood psychology. It's like adult Yeah.

But like especially if you're little Samara, I just she could have she could have used a gentler touch. I'm like, man, you're asking for it. You're asking to like die in seven days. Quick aside, I am seeing on the Wikipedia page that Chris Cooper appears in this movie as child Murder uncredited. Those scenes were cut. I have him, Yeah, I did you read about this? I I have information on that. Please please give me the rundown on why

esteemed actor Chris Cooper appears as child Murder uncredited. His character existed entirely to answer the question. It was like the main question my wife had, which is, wait, who did they give the tape to at the end that the kid made a copy of which the movie just

doesn't answer. But originally the movie opened with a in which Chris Cooper playing this creepy child murderer is like, I've found God and I'm good now and you have to help clear my name, and she's kind of ignores him, and then he doesn't appear for the entire rest of the movie. And then at the end when they need someone to give the tape to, they give the tape to him because he deserves it. They cut it. That's

kind of satisfying. Test audience has had the reasonable question of we don't understand why Chris Cooper is in this movie and then not in it for the entire rest of the movie. It is weird because it's like, I mean, I and I do like when movies do that when they just bring in like a famous act and this is kind of like pique Chris Cooper to like American

Beauty came out a couple of years before. This is also the year he's in adaptation, like he's he's really in his bag, and he also happens to be child Murder uncredited, which like, I mean, I I do appreciate. I was like, okay, he's not he's he's not too you know, there are no small roles, there's just child Murder uncredited. And then part of the viral I did

a lot of IMDb a trivia reading. I'm sorry. Part of the viral campaign for this movie was they made a fake website that was like by this guy telling the story of the ring from this character who they ended up cutting from the movie. Well, what a waste of time. But that's so fun. I love that. I want. I know, actually I don't want a whole movie about Chris Cooper being a child murderer. I take that back, but I like, I like that he was, that he

was technically in this movie. That's that's a treat. That's comforting to know. Yeah, I don't again, this movie just breaks. Normally, if I'm watching a movie for the podcast, I'm like, I turn on my analytical brain and I'm like, I have so many thoughts and but not not today. I

don't know this this movie. There is what I like about this movie as it does it has a lot of things that a lot of horror movies has, but it just does it well and in a way that makes more sense to me than usually, Like you have, Like I guess Naomi Watts technically counts as a final girl, but she's also got a final son. She's not like, like you said, just if she's not running from something

the entire time, she's actively pursuing it. And it's like, not in an irrational horror way, it's in all these ways that makes sense. Way you do have like the creepy child, but you get kind of like a two punch of like you understand why the child is creepy, but also you don't have to really understand why the child is creepy. She's just inherently creepy and that's her

whole thing. Um, and then creepy child number two in aiden right, and then the ultimate twist is that he's going to work for the US government and that's a bit scary. And then we don't have to feel great about that. I don't know. I don't you know what are his politics? I couldn't. They're not listed on his Wikipedia page. Who's he voting for? We don't know that? Should that should be on everyone's Wikipedia page because it's a lot of what we want to know. It's just like,

who's this guy? I'm just like, should I bother? Should I get it? Should I care? Me? There? I did find out here's a jump scare. My favorite cast member of the Chronicles of Narnia movie is now a huge influencer in the in the Conservative Party in England, do I know, I mean, given Chronicles of Narnia, that doesn't surprise me, I know, but I was really rooting for scan Dar Keynes or whatever. The fund is not Scandar,

you know, but indeed Scandar. Anyway, my last thought on Samara that, um, this is another thing I didn't catch back when I was being terrified at fourteen or fifteen whatever it was, is what she's actually doing when she kills people, which seemed kind of vague the first time I saw it, but I realized this time they actually pretty clearly lay out the mechanism of how she's killing people, because her whole thing is she just puts scary images in people's heads and they die of a heart attack.

So that's just she crawls out of her TV and she makes you think of scary things until you have a heart attack, which once you think of the mechanism, it actually becomes a little less scary. But especially and it's like, well, it's on you if you when you when you rewatch the tape, I'm like, well, if you're that's if you're so scared of that tape that your heart explodes. I don't know what to tell you, buddy, It's it's mostly b roll um. I don't think I

even can made that connection. Oh because yeah, Rachel's sister question Mark Slash Katie's mom is like the actual grieving one. Yeah right, She's like, yeah, Katie died from a heart attack, but she was seventeen, like in good health otherwise, like

why did this happen? I did not connect that either, And the creepy face is like I guess them being scared to deaths at the end with the like right, both times we see her doing it, they flash every frame from the cursed tape as they die, which I think is supposed to be like her implanting those images. I don't know. It just was like way more logistical than I think I remembered it being where I'm like, oh, they like laid out how she's killing people. Yeah. I

did not make that connection. No no trace she It's all psychological torture um. And then it's on you. It's still very scary to me, even though you're like, wow, you thought about a ladder too hard? And then he died, but it's still scary. Um yeah, does anyone else else have um thoughts on the Ring expanded universe? I guess yeah.

I mean again, since I came in with broken brain, too scared to have you know, thoughtful analysis, but upon you know, reflecting, and you know from this discussion it's a it's a female character at the center of a horror movie in which she is are more active than

female characters tend to be in the horror genre. You have a female character who is the antagonist who doesn't have like a gendered back story the way that that like kind of revels in like girlhood or woman whood trauma, at least not in this installment apparently, right right, Um yeah,

I guess that gets explored further. But in in this if you just isolate the first movie, it's just like, yeah, a female character who is evil in the way that male characters are allowed to simply be evil without any kind of gendered back story. So I guess that's good question mark. I don't know how I feel about it,

but you know, a subversion. I guess it's also kind of like ready to go into it being like I don't know, like because I sort of always forget that Noah is a character in this, but I'm not mad about it. He doesn't like I. I sort of whenever a new male character is introduced in the same job as like the woman protagonist, I'm like, oh, no, now he's just gonna start doing things and she's not gonna be allowed to do any more things, because that will

happen in movies sometimes, but that doesn't happen here. Like they're just sort of, uh, there's a lot of clerical work involved in this investigation, and she needs another set of hands, and uh, you know, like he he dies ultimately, so I was like, you know, and she had the foresight to be like, Noah, don't watch this tape. You might die, and he's like, pish posh, I'm watching it. It's like, what am I a scarity cat? And then he thought about a ladder so hard as hard exploded.

I don't know if there's a conversation to be had around how did other people feel about the reveal that like Rachel and Noah were like former lovers and they had a son together and then they start to kind of recon their romance towards the end. I don't know, I think you could argue that that feels kind of wedged in, or maybe that's just an appropriate piece to the story. I don't really have a thought about it one way or the other, because again, I'm too I'm

too busy being scared about the ladder. I mean I literally did not notice, right, right right, I think I was so focused on the scary bit. I totally did not notice that aspect of their relationship. It's like, it's very yeah, I think it's like, I think you're right that it could very easily be cut and changed basically nothing, because the kid doesn't seem particularly affected by it, Like just no one seems affected by that revelation, and then

the movie just keeps going. So it just in my mind, I'm like, was that just like a studio and then they're just like, but we're not changing the rest of the script. Would just have to say that Noah's the father, but he's only got like two days alove anyway, So um, well, in the way that like female characters, it's rare to see a female character existing in a movie, especially as the protagonist, if she's not also in evolved in some

kind of but there's not a love interest. But again it's it's barely noticeable for some members of the audience, so maybe it's not a big deal. An interesting thing about the gender dynamics here is that in the novel this is based on, which I have not read but I just read the Wikipedia of it, most of the roles are gender swapped. It's the protagonist is male, the Noah character is female, and instead of a son, he has a daughter. Interesting, so everyone swapped. And then Sadako

is actually intersex in the novel. Interesting. Okay uh. I don't know what any of that does to the meaning of the story, but it is just what it is, right. I guess it's like, I mean, as much as I would like more intersex characters in movies, I feel like Samara is maybe not an excellent candidate, especially because she's the villain. Extremely I think that could owed some rough

meanings to this movie. Yeah, I I am. I think that the this movie's primary crime is that it was made kind of to just whitewash and existing Japanese movie that is so similar, Like it's there's like a lot of shot for shot moments between the two movies. But nevertheless, gor Verbinski persisted and that's feminism. Baby. Yeah, yeah, I have no. I think that's it for me. Yeah, I mean there, it's this movie is hard to talk about

because we're all afraid of it. Um is what I learned today because I've like objectively, I'm like, okay, listeners are going to be like no, but there should be a shoehorned in romance are like yeah, but I was scared, as my response, and it's like, okay, the horny teenager died immediately, I'm like yes, but in my defense, I was so scared when that happened, and so I can't possibly have a cogent discussion about it because it was scary to me. Yeah. Um to advertise shutter again, they have.

I haven't watched this yet, but they have in Japan. They made Sadako versus and I don't remember her name, but the girl from the Grudge. Um, so it's a straight up like a Freddie versus Jason movie. But it's the Ring girl and the Grudge girl, very little girls. And I read the Wikipedia, it's like them fighting over who gets to haunt a house. It sounds incredible. I haven't watched that rules I still haven't um seen the Grudge because my Yeah, I was just like, no, you're

not doing this to me again. I refused to be a part of this scary little girl narrative as a scary little girl myself. Um, I feel like the scary little girl community has been absolutely decimated by Samara and the Grudge Girl. Yeah okay, yeah, as as a as a ten year old who did not brush her hair. We were really in the trenches during these years. Yeah, these movies. But I do want to watch the Grudge? Is that? Does the Grudge hold up in any way?

Show I've never seen. I've never seen it. Yeah, wow, okay, wait come back next year. And after the after the ring, I couldn't do it. I was like, absolutely not. Well, I love when we have a guest that comes on the show, like once a year for a very particular kind of we have a guest who comes on the show specifically to cover the Santa Claus franchise, for example, Grace Freud. Uh and she's gotten so good at talking about So come back next year with another scary little girl.

Oh god, not the nation I want to end up in. And then that will disappear in your Wikipedia page one. Um, yeah, I think that's all I have to say about the ring um. This movie does pass the Bechdel test, and as you prayed it out earlier, Joseph immediately between Becca and Katie who were talking about a videotape, well, first they're talking about like how many television rays passed through, but they have a really interesting conversation about like being

afraid of TVs, just like right off the bat. And then they do talk about Katie's boyfriend Josh and like if she if Katie fooled around with him or not, so they have to establish that she's she's a horny tectually, you don't feel bad when she does, right, that's just candy.

And then they talk about the tape. And then later on Rachel and Dr Grasnick speak about Samara and Anna Morgan, and then also Rachel talks to her sister about Katie's death, like there's it passes, and Rachel talks to Samara and Samara's scary images. And then in the biggest win for feminism, I believe the mother murdering a daughter scene passes the back. Yes, okay,

this is actually a feminist text. Now that we're now that we're getting down to the nitty gritty women are talking about all sorts of you know, women murdering women, mothers hating their daughters. Um, aunt's actively not giving a ship. What happened to their niece when her heart exploded? Earlier this week, question of market Like, it's just there's a lot of women. When women were talking to each other. It doesn't look as we've talked about in the last

years that this show has been on the air. It doesn't need to be a pleasant pass. It can be a mean, aggressive, evil pass. Ring Ring seven days click gasp. Yeah, so the ring feminist text. How about our nipple scale though, where we rate the movie on the scale of zero to five nipples, nipples being kind of the same shape as a ring when you think about it. Um, I guess, uh and and uh. That scale, of course, is based on how the movie fares when examining it through an

intersectional feminist lens. Um. I truly don't even know where to begin rating this movie, because again, I had no analytical thoughts. I only had I don't like that this movie is making me feel scared, screaming and crying. Yeah, yeah, so I'm gonna go like two and a half I'm just like, oh, let's just go down the middle. Why I don't know, maybe even three. I don't know why not three? Um? And the answer is I don't know, answer is ring, ring, you have seven days to live.

I think I'll go two and a half, just to split down the middle, because that's what rating I give a movie when I have no idea how to analyze it. Um. Yeah, no, as we discussed there, there's there's interesting things that the movie seems to subvert, but all I also I don't know how to, Like, I don't know how to analyze a movie that doesn't operate on logic the way that horror movies tend not to operate on much logic. So it just kind of breaks my brain. I don't really know.

The movie isn't doing anything like overtly like reductive or harmful as far as I can tell, or maybe it is.

I have no idea. I feel like, ultimately, yeah, it's the if we're pitting this movie against other movies of that era, like the early two thousands is such a fucking cess pool, and so so this movie like managing to effectively subvert some stuff and just like have a really like strongly motivated central character that is like is a mother, but is not like strictly defined by motherhood, which I feel like it's kind of hard to find

in this genre a lot of times. In fact, there's only a handful of scenes where you even see her interacting with her son. She's mostly out investigating. I would argue she's like not an awesome mom, but also we're not parents, and she's a single mom, and she doesn't exist,

so there's a lot going on. Yeah, yeah, I feel like this I don't know, and and this movie just does the smart thing of just having a lot of different women who are a lot of different ways, and so it's like not making any sort of I feel like, prescriptive statement. It is saying something about motherhood, but honestly,

I don't know what it isn't know what. Yeah, I feel like this is going to be one of those episodes where our listeners are like, I can't believe you didn't talk about this obvious thing while we were scared. We were too scared. Then that's my real defense. We're screaming and crying and we only have and we can't.

We won't get your message, we won't get your emails, because we'll be dead because um um yeah, if you want to reach me, give me a call, ring ring, I'm going to give it three nipples and and and and five rings and no seven rings seven, which is an Ariana Grande song. What is that? Everything is connected? Um? Okay, yeah, I'm gonna give us seven rings, three nipples. I'm giving all my apples to Samara because I'm honestly rooting for

her to get Naomi Watts's ass, and she does. I'm rooting for Samara to go viral and get one million followers or more. I will give the movie two and a half nipples and seven days. And I'll give all of that too. Becca, the other teen from the opening scene who is hospitalized because of the trauma of seeing her friend who explode died. Yeah the end, Joseph, Just what about you? Um? Well, On one hand, I think this is a very good movie, Like, I think it's

well written and well made. On the other hand, I hate it and it ruined it, like made my life worse for several years after watching it in a very real way. Um So I think I'm also a solid three nipples. Um just like very good movie, I loathe it and wish it hadn't been made. Yeah, Gore Verbinsky unnoticed for for this one and not well whatever, we don't have time to talk about Gore Verbinsky. Also behind the scenes, it is worth saying there are it's mostly

men behind the scenes, mostly white guys. There is a female producer on the movie, but that was about all I was able to find. And uh, you gotta you gotta Docket for being a whitewashed remake for no reason. Right that said, this movie ruined. It sounds like everyone on the Zoom calls life and I used to do. And this is why horror is the genre I engage with the least. I do not like movies that that I feel punished by watching them, and I feel very punished.

I do. I hate I do not like to be punished. I went through all this and then yeah, now, like, the reason I bring up Shutter is because it's the only three service I use basically anymore. Like I almost never watch a movie unless it's a horror movie anymore fascinating. I've been really horror pilled in the last five years. I am excited for Malignant, which is coming out on

the Matreon very soon, or maybe just came out. It's best, the best, undisputed genius him so much so, Joseph, thank you so much for joining us, thank you for for having me, you know, solidarity and in all of us being tormented by this movie once again. Um, where let's check in in a week? Seriously? Where can people follow you and check out your stuff online? Plug away? Uh? Well, I make a podcast called Welcome to Night Fail, which is Welcome to Nightfail dot com. And there's also in

fun about We make a bunch of other shows, um. Most. I also write books and I have a number of books out that you can find at bookstories, most notably for this season. I don't know when this episode is coming out, but I have a novel about Halloween called

The Halloween Moon um that actually takes place. It takes place in Cameria, where the Ring was filmed partly, and it's a it's a middle grade novel about a little girl who loves not a little she's thirteen year old girl who loves Halloween until when year Halloween doesn't end and it just is Halloween forever. Um. So that can be found at bookstores and is a good read for the season. Cool check that out for for the Samara

in your life. Ah, thank you so much for coving God Joseph, Like, I just such a big fan of all of your work and it's one of the reasons that I wanted to do podcasts. Um So, in a way, you've committed a crime. Dare you? And yes, come back for the grudge next year? Do I have to? This is the curse we place on you. Yeah, you are doomed to return to the Becktel Cast every year to cover a different scary kid movie and then you can

follow us on Twitter and Instagram at becktel Cast. You can check out our Matreon at patreon dot com slash betel Cast, where we cover two bonus episodes a month and you also have access to the entire back catalog. This month we are doing Malignant, as we mentioned in Final Destination three Baby, the scariest one, the one that I liked the most and apparently you like the most because our matrons voted for that. You can also get some merch over at t public dot com slash the

Bechtel Cast. It's beetle Juice season. Tis this season to talk about if beetle juice comes wet scabs or dry scalps something to always be having on your mind and ultimately, I think our most impactful um contribution to the discoorse discourse. Indeed so And with that ring ring, ringing hello and goodbye, Click perfect stuck the landing, Bye bye,