The Ring: A focus on Imagery to create atmosphere in films

As the 6th highest grossing  horror film in the US "The Ring" raked in $129,000,000 in the box office. It's success as a psychological horror film is contributed greatly to by it's fantastic use of imagery to set an atmosphere of terror in the audience.

While it may not possess copious amounts of gore as can be found in a slasher type of film (Psycho, Halloween etc.), or enormously ugly monsters of a sci-fi horror flick (Alien), "The Ring" is able to inspire ludicrous amounts of fear in it's target audience through it's iconic imagery amounting to moments of suspense before the next big scare.

Detailed underneath will be some of the most iconic images in "The Ring"



The Video

Turning a staple of modern culture (at the time of the original "Ringu" anyway) into an instrument of death, that is a very frightening thing indeed, by making the familiar object a symbol of death the terror it causes on the audience is fealt more keenly than if a less common item were to be used. By selecting the videotape, it allows it's audience to sub-consciously comtemplate the very real possibility of there own tape harbouring such a fate, thus hightening the fear of the viewers.
The tape can also be seen as the film challenging societies reliance on technology to get by, it does this by making what we depend on the cause of the on screen characters peril.

Child Saviour and Murderer

When his mother watches the tape that will kill her, only Aiden Keller can provide the cryptic clues  through his semi-psychic abilities that could save her from the evil girl lurking within. The image provided here of the child being both a saviour and killer, is a dramatisised representation of the new generation coming through in the early years of the new Millenium, who can either improve the world or destroy it.                                                   Aiden represents the innocence and hope children bring, and is an important plot device as he himself  provides his mother with hope of surviving the killer tape, this combined with his innocence allow his character to create rare moments of calm.

On the flipside of this is the spirit of the tape, Tamara, representative of an average little girl at first glance, she represents vengeance and wrath, seeking retribution through the tape for the way she was treated as a child. She is there to increase the tension at key points in a scene by utilizing her average appearance to create sheer and utter terror in the age demographic.