The Ring
2002
2002
- The story begins with two teenage girls discussing the events of the previous weekend, during which one of them, Katie Embry (played by Amber Tamblyn), went to a cabin in the mountains to spend time with some friends. While talking, the subject of a supposedly cursed videotape is brought up. The other girl, Rebecca 'Becca' Kotler (played by Rachael Bella), states that anyone who watches this video receives a phone call, in which a voice says, "you will die in seven days." Then, exactly seven days (to the minute) after viewing the tape, the viewer dies. Katie reveals in horror that she had watched that video at the cabin last weekend with three friends, exactly seven days earlier. After a series of unexplainable occurrences, involving a television in the house turning itself on and eerie sounds, Katie is mysteriously killed while Becca has the misfortune of watching, causing her to be institutionalized in a mental hospital.
The film then introduces Katie's aunt, Rachel (played by Naomi Watts), a journalist living in Seattle. Her son, Aidan, was not only Katie's cousin but also a good friend, and seems to be sensitive to psychic occurrences. Aidan's teacher brings to Rachel's attention that he had been drawing pictures of his cousin dead in the ground for days before Katie actually died. At Katie's funeral, Rachel's sister asks her to investigate her daughter's death, and, as she begins, she learns of the videotape. Her investigation leads her to the same cabin in the mountains where Katie and her friends had watched the tape. There, she finds the tape and eventually watches it. After that the phone rings and a girl says - seven days. The next day she calls Noah, Aiden's father, to see the video. Noah is sarcastic and skeptical about the link between the videos and the deaths, but Rachel becomes increasingly convinced after pictures taken of her show her face severely distorted - an effect that was present in the pictures of Katie and her friends the day after watching the tape. Noah watches the tape, and asks her to make a copy for further investigation. Unfortunately, just as Rachel is beginning to truly fear there is something dangerous about this tape, Aidan watches it a couple of days later. On the same day, Noah calls Rachel and tells her that he believes her claims about the tape, after he sees himself in a convenience store camera with a blurry face. As he talks to her on the phone, we see a pile of developed photographs that Noah has recently taken of himself...all with his face distorted.
After viewing the tape, strange things begin to happen to Rachel, and presumably anyone else who had viewed the cursed images. She experiences terrible nightmares, nose bleeds, and curious surreal situations (such as when she pauses a section of the cursed tape in which a fly is running across the screen, she finds she is able to pluck it from the monitor). Rachel's investigation turns to the tape itself, which contains a seemingly random series of disturbing, grainy, black and white images. Investigating those images leads Rachel to Anna Morgan (the woman seen in the tape) who lived on Moesko Island with her husband and daughter, and raised horses. Rachel discovers that a mysterious tragedy befell the Morgan ranch, in which all the horses seemed to go mad, killing themselves attempting to flee the ranch. This presumably caused Anna Morgan to become severely depressed, and shortly after taking residence at a mental institution, to commit suicide.
Rachel goes to the Morgan's house and finds Richard Morgan who refuses to talk about the video or his daughter. Rachel goes to see the local doctor to ask about the Morgan family. The old doctor tells her that Anna wanted a child more than anything, but was never able to successfully carry a fetus to term. One winter they left and returned with Samara whom they adopted. But after some time Anna started complaining about visions that only happened when Samara was around, so she sent them both to a mental institute on the continent. Noah goes to the institute and finds Anna Morgan's file and discovers that a video is missing. Rachel goes back to the Morgans' house, where she discovers the tapes of Samara's conversations with the doctor. Samara timidly explains that she does not intentionally hurt the people around her, but "it won't stop." After watching the video of Samara's conversation, Rachel is confronted by Richard Morgan, who has taken all the electronics in the house into his bathroom as the bathtub is overflowing with water. He states the girl was evil, and then promptly kills himself by lying in the bathtub and turning on the electronics via a switch-controlled extension cord around his neck.
Noah arrives at the house just after Richard's death, and together with Rachel, he goes to the barn to discover a little room where Samara was kept by her father. Behind the wallpaper they discover a burned image of a tree recognizable from the video tape, and Rachel remembers seeing it near the cabin at Shelter Mountain Inn. From this, we begin to gather that Samara had the supernatural ability to inadvertently burn images into the things around her - including the minds of the horses and the minds of her parents, driving her mother to kill herself. Rachel and Noah depart the Morgan farm and arrive at Shelter Mountain Inn, and discover a well underneath the floor. Rachel is led to where Samara was killed; at the bottom of a well. A strike from a falling TV, presumably perpetrated by Samara, results in Rachel falling into stuck in the well and finding Samara's body. Samara, or at any rate, the not-completely-dead body of Samara, uses her ability to show Rachel that Anna attempted to smother Samara with a garbage bag in order to end the madness created by Samara's ability, dumping her body in the well afterwards. However, we see Samara's eyes open as she sinks and watches her mother close the well, and a horrified Rachel realizes that Samara was still alive. Rachel notifies the authorities, and Samara, whose body rapidly decomposes in Rachel's arms after Rachel awakes from the vision, is given a proper burial, presumably putting her spirit to rest. Noah asks her how long could you survive trapped in a well, and Rachel guesses that you could survive seven days.
At this point it seems that everything is well again, and Rachel informs Aidan that they will no longer be troubled by Samara. However, Aidan quickly corrects her and says that Samara's spirit has been released, evident by the bruises on his arm, given by Samara in a nightmare that Rachel also experienced. In the film's most unsettling and memorable scene, Noah is going over some film prints in his apartment when his TV turns on to static, in the same fashion that Rachel's niece Katie experienced before her death. Noah turns it off casually before the TV turns itself on again, which alerts Noah. He is then treated to a recurring image of a well, in which a long-haired female figure (Samara) crawls out of the well and slowly walks toward the screen. It intensifies as Noah quickly backs away and Samara literally crawls out of the television set. Noah knocks over a shelf in fear and crawls away before turning around, only to have Samara stare directly at him, causing his inevitable death which Rachel discovers after racing to his apartment. Rachel rushes home and destroys the tape in hysterics, unable to understand why she was spared but Noah was killed. She realizes that the only way to escape Samara after watching the video is to make a copy of the tape and show it to someone else, thus continuing the cycle. Rachel made a copy to show to Noah, while Noah made no copies. The movie ends with Rachel helping Aiden to make a copy of the tape.
As the tape copy is made, Aidan turns to his mother, Rachel and asks her who was to see the tape?
Directed by
Gore Verbinski
Writing Credits (WGA)
Ehren Kruger...(screenplay)
Kôji Suzuki...(novel) (as Koji Suzuki)
Hiroshi Takahashi...(1998 screenplay Ringu) (uncredited)
Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Naomi Watts...Rachel
Martin Henderson...Noah
David Dorfman...Aidan
Brian Cox...Richard Morgan
Jane Alexander...Dr. Grasnik
Lindsay Frost...Ruth
Amber Tamblyn...Katie
Rachael Bella...Becca
Daveigh Chase...Samara
Shannon Cochran...Anna Morgan
Sandra Thigpen...Teacher
Richard Lineback...Innkeeper
Gore Verbinski
Writing Credits (WGA)
Ehren Kruger...(screenplay)
Kôji Suzuki...(novel) (as Koji Suzuki)
Hiroshi Takahashi...(1998 screenplay Ringu) (uncredited)
Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Naomi Watts...Rachel
Martin Henderson...Noah
David Dorfman...Aidan
Brian Cox...Richard Morgan
Jane Alexander...Dr. Grasnik
Lindsay Frost...Ruth
Amber Tamblyn...Katie
Rachael Bella...Becca
Daveigh Chase...Samara
Shannon Cochran...Anna Morgan
Sandra Thigpen...Teacher
Richard Lineback...Innkeeper
Budget:
$48,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend USA:
$15,015,393, 20 October 2002, Wide Release
Gross USA:
$129,128,133
Cumulative Worldwide Gross:
$249,348,933
$48,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend USA:
$15,015,393, 20 October 2002, Wide Release
Gross USA:
$129,128,133
Cumulative Worldwide Gross:
$249,348,933
Trivia
The "cursed" video is available as an easter egg on the DVD. Select look here and press down and your cursor will disappear. Press Enter. This has an interesting feature; your remote control is disabled. Once the "video" has started playing, you can't stop it, pause it, fast-forward it, or return to the menu. Unless you turn off the TV, you're forced to watch the whole thing. When it's over, the DVD returns to the menu, then you hear a phone ring twice before you're given control over your remote again.
Long before the movie premiered, the killer video was used as a commercial. The commercial did not mention any movie for nearly a month.
On its first week of release in the U.S. and Canada, select cinemas put actual copies of the cursed tape on seats for unsuspecting viewers as freebies. The cursed video is now available as an Easter egg feature on the DVD.
The tree with the fiery red leaves featured in the movie is a Japanese maple. The fruit of this tree is known as a "samara."
Until Stephen King's It (2017), this movie was the highest-grossing horror remake in history, with a total worldwide gross of over US $249 million.
An interesting feature on the VHS release: rewind the tape to the very beginning. (Or just put the tape in the VCR when fully rewound.) When you play it, you see the cursed video. After the segment ends, you hear a phone ringing twice, then it goes into the previews. Also after the movie has ended, you see additional scenes that help explain the mystery of the cursed video. In the VHS reissue, it just has the movie itself.
99 of 103 found this interesting | Share this
Sold more than two million DVD copies in the U.S. alone in its first 24 hours of video release.
There are no title cards or opening credits to the movie, although there is a flash of "the ring" during the Dreamworks logo.
At one point, in the scene where Rachel is researching Anna Morgan and Moesko Island, she finds information on a website that is located at: http://www.moeskoislandlighthouse.com. You were able to actually visit this one-page website, however it has since been moved to: http://www.sweb.cz/moesko/
DreamWorks took an unusual but effective tack on the release plan for this film. When the lengthy post-production and test screening process was complete (it took more time than usual largely because of edits to make the film less graphically violent and move it away from a potential R rating towards the PG-13 it received), the company decided to launch it in fewer theaters than expected. The logic was simple: if the film did well during the October 18-20, 2002 weekend, it could be expanded to great anticipation just ahead of Halloween. The Ring ended up improving its box office in weekend 2 and became one of the biggest surprise hits of the year.
The red Japanese maple (seen in the video) was artificial, built out of steel tubing and plaster, with painted silk for the leaves. (The crew dubbed it "Lucille" after "a certain red-haired actress"). While filming in Washington state, the tree was erected three times, only to have it knocked over by nearly 100-mile-an-hour wind gusts. In Los Angeles it was erected for a fourth time, only to be blown down again, this time by 60-mile-an-hour winds.
The role of Rachel was first offered to Jennifer Connelly (who would later star in another Japanese horror remake Dark Water (2005)). The script was then offered to Jennifer Love Hewitt, to Gwyneth Paltrow, to Kate Beckinsale, and finally to Naomi Watts.
The "Moesko Island Lighthouse" is a fictional name for a real lighthouse located in Newport, Oregon. Built in 1873, the real lighthouse is named Yaquina Head Lighthouse and is still currently an active aid to navigation. It is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a past keeper.
Daveigh Chase took the role of Samara after losing the role of Sarah Altman in Panic Room (2002) to Kristen Stewart.
Although the meaning of the title "The Ring" is ambiguous, Kôji Suzuki, the author of the original novel, always intended it to mean the cyclical nature of the plot, rather than the phone ringing.
The success of The Ring (2002) at the box-office paved the way for several more American remakes of Japanese horror films including The Grudge (2004), Dark Water(2005), Pulse (2006), and One Missed Call (2008).
In both the American and Japanese versions, the name of the little girl is connected to a story about death. The name "Samara" refers to a story retold by W. Somerset Maughamas "Appointment in Samarra", about a man who meets Death in the marketplace and flees to the town of Samarra.
This film was originally promoted under the title "Ring," like Ringu (1998), the original Japanese film upon which it is based. Shortly before release, the title was changed to "The Ring."
After the horse jumps off the ferry and gets (presumably) chopped up in the propellers, the titular ring can be seen for two frames, if paused at just the right moment (or play the scene frame-by-frame).
Subtle images of circles in various forms, such as the designs on the doctor's sweater, the shower drain and Rachel's apartment number, appear throughout the movie.
Brian Cox was the only actor considered to play Richard Morgan.
In the space of four years since the original Ringu (1998), the production budget multiplied roughly forty-fold.
Jennifer Love Hewitt was offered the role of Rachel Keller, but turned it down.
Production designer Tom Duffield relied on Andrew Wyeth's paintings as his main visual inspiration for the film.
When Rachel is looking off her balcony at the units of other residents, she focuses on one apartment containing a seated man with his left leg in a cast. This recalls Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), in which James Stewart, with his left leg in a cast, peers into his neighbors' apartments.
A Bad Religion sticker is partially visible in Noah's locker in the A/V room; Gore Verbinski(credited as Gore Verbinsky) directed the 1994 music video for "American Jesus" from Bad Religion's 1993 Epitaph Records release "Recipe For Hate". Other stickers visible in the locker include those for Epitaph bands Pennywise, The Refused, Lars Frederiksen And The Bastards, and Descendents.
Since the release of "The Ring" in Canada, the story of the cursed video has become very popular in some provinces, and the story is passed by kids in school as a rumor that it actually happened.
While the film takes place in Seattle, in earlier drafts of the screenplay, it originally took place in Massachusetts and Maine (for the scenes involving the Morgan family).
Amber Tamblyn (Katie) and David Dorfman (Aidan) also appeared together in the television series Joan of Arcadia (2003). Like in "The Ring", Tamblyn's character babysat Dorfman's character, who had a fixation on death.
The original WGA-approved credits listed Hiroshi Takahashi (writer of the original 1998 screenplay for Ringu (1998)) but his name is absent from the final print.
During the scene in which Rachel is on the balcony looking into windows of another building, shown on the TV of the third window she peaks at, is a Taiwanese soft drink commercial, featuring actor Takeshi Kaneshiro. This commercial is made in the early-'90s, when Takeshi's career was mainly in Taiwan as a pop idol.
A lot of alleged "ghost sightings" videos have had a ghost that copied Samara's "look," with the hair obscuring the face. The trend suggests the videos are hoaxes.
When Noah searches through the archives on Anna Morgan, Japanese writing is seen briefly on paper. This Japanese writing ties back to the original Japanese film, Ringu(1998).
The October 3, 2001 draft of the screenplay credited Scott Frank as a writer.
Dr. Grasnik's grandson Darby originally had a line, but it was cut.
Scott Frank revised the screenplay.
The pen that Rachel Keller uses throughout the film is a Sensa.
Spoilers The trivia items below may give away important plot points.
To promote this film the studio placed copies of the mysterious "killer tape" at concerts and events. The tape had a label directing whoever watched it to a web site (www.anopenletter.com) supposedly written by a pedophile who'd seen the tape and was now trying to warn others about his impending fate (this was the character portrayed by Chris Cooper in a sub-plot deleted from the theatrical release). The website contained links that led to other movie-related mock-ups, including a page written by one of Katie's friends who was unaware of Katie's death and believed she'd been kidnapped or run away, and a page written by scientists who researched psychic phenomena involving television transmissions. When the movie was released, Dreamworks deleted all the Web pages and denied ever having anything to do with them.
The ring shape motif is unique to the American remake. Kôji Suzuki, the author of the novel upon which the movies are based, says that the title referred to the cyclical nature of the curse, since, for the viewer to survive after watching it, the video tape must be copied and passed around over and over.
Numerous scenes were cut down or entirely cut from the film before release. Some scenes were present only at test screenings. Others showed up in previews or the "Don't Watch This" short film on the DVD.
When Noah and Rachel return to the inn, at the end of the movie, there's a sign that reads "Closed until further notice", under the "Shelter Mountain Inn" sign. In an earlier cut of the film, the cabin manager dies from watching the tape (see "Alternate Versions"). Probably that's the reason for the inn being closed.
Playing the movie frame by frame, in the exact moment when Katie Embry is scared to death at the beginning of the movie, you can see all the images that appear on the video. Each image appears for just a fraction of a second. The effect is repeated at the end of the movie.
Chris Cooper appeared in a small role but was cut from the film. In an interview Cooper told Sci Fi Wire: "It was what they call a bookend. I opened the movie and closed the movie. It was two scenes, and I was a serial rapist or a murderer who deserved everything that was coming to him. Because [Naomi Watts' character] was a journalist, I was trying to convince her that I had found God and I had straightened my ways and rehabilitated myself. I was looking for an out, and she didn't buy it, correctly so. Then in the tail end, she pays me a visit and gives me the tape." "What I hear is when they ran the screenings, it was more a disruption than anything. They said, 'Well, where's Cooper? We want to see more of him.' So they cut it all." Cooper's face can be seen briefly in the film on the front page of a newspaper in Noah's loft.
Its 59 minutes before Brian Cox makes a proper appearance in the film. Even then, he only gets 4 minutes of screentime, in spite of prominent billing.
During the climax of the film when Naomi Watts' character is knocked into the well by the television, Samara very briefly appears on the screen just as Rachel turns around to look at the television.
The "cursed" video is available as an easter egg on the DVD. Select look here and press down and your cursor will disappear. Press Enter. This has an interesting feature; your remote control is disabled. Once the "video" has started playing, you can't stop it, pause it, fast-forward it, or return to the menu. Unless you turn off the TV, you're forced to watch the whole thing. When it's over, the DVD returns to the menu, then you hear a phone ring twice before you're given control over your remote again.
Long before the movie premiered, the killer video was used as a commercial. The commercial did not mention any movie for nearly a month.
On its first week of release in the U.S. and Canada, select cinemas put actual copies of the cursed tape on seats for unsuspecting viewers as freebies. The cursed video is now available as an Easter egg feature on the DVD.
The tree with the fiery red leaves featured in the movie is a Japanese maple. The fruit of this tree is known as a "samara."
Until Stephen King's It (2017), this movie was the highest-grossing horror remake in history, with a total worldwide gross of over US $249 million.
An interesting feature on the VHS release: rewind the tape to the very beginning. (Or just put the tape in the VCR when fully rewound.) When you play it, you see the cursed video. After the segment ends, you hear a phone ringing twice, then it goes into the previews. Also after the movie has ended, you see additional scenes that help explain the mystery of the cursed video. In the VHS reissue, it just has the movie itself.
99 of 103 found this interesting | Share this
Sold more than two million DVD copies in the U.S. alone in its first 24 hours of video release.
There are no title cards or opening credits to the movie, although there is a flash of "the ring" during the Dreamworks logo.
At one point, in the scene where Rachel is researching Anna Morgan and Moesko Island, she finds information on a website that is located at: http://www.moeskoislandlighthouse.com. You were able to actually visit this one-page website, however it has since been moved to: http://www.sweb.cz/moesko/
DreamWorks took an unusual but effective tack on the release plan for this film. When the lengthy post-production and test screening process was complete (it took more time than usual largely because of edits to make the film less graphically violent and move it away from a potential R rating towards the PG-13 it received), the company decided to launch it in fewer theaters than expected. The logic was simple: if the film did well during the October 18-20, 2002 weekend, it could be expanded to great anticipation just ahead of Halloween. The Ring ended up improving its box office in weekend 2 and became one of the biggest surprise hits of the year.
The red Japanese maple (seen in the video) was artificial, built out of steel tubing and plaster, with painted silk for the leaves. (The crew dubbed it "Lucille" after "a certain red-haired actress"). While filming in Washington state, the tree was erected three times, only to have it knocked over by nearly 100-mile-an-hour wind gusts. In Los Angeles it was erected for a fourth time, only to be blown down again, this time by 60-mile-an-hour winds.
The role of Rachel was first offered to Jennifer Connelly (who would later star in another Japanese horror remake Dark Water (2005)). The script was then offered to Jennifer Love Hewitt, to Gwyneth Paltrow, to Kate Beckinsale, and finally to Naomi Watts.
The "Moesko Island Lighthouse" is a fictional name for a real lighthouse located in Newport, Oregon. Built in 1873, the real lighthouse is named Yaquina Head Lighthouse and is still currently an active aid to navigation. It is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a past keeper.
Daveigh Chase took the role of Samara after losing the role of Sarah Altman in Panic Room (2002) to Kristen Stewart.
Although the meaning of the title "The Ring" is ambiguous, Kôji Suzuki, the author of the original novel, always intended it to mean the cyclical nature of the plot, rather than the phone ringing.
The success of The Ring (2002) at the box-office paved the way for several more American remakes of Japanese horror films including The Grudge (2004), Dark Water(2005), Pulse (2006), and One Missed Call (2008).
In both the American and Japanese versions, the name of the little girl is connected to a story about death. The name "Samara" refers to a story retold by W. Somerset Maughamas "Appointment in Samarra", about a man who meets Death in the marketplace and flees to the town of Samarra.
This film was originally promoted under the title "Ring," like Ringu (1998), the original Japanese film upon which it is based. Shortly before release, the title was changed to "The Ring."
After the horse jumps off the ferry and gets (presumably) chopped up in the propellers, the titular ring can be seen for two frames, if paused at just the right moment (or play the scene frame-by-frame).
Subtle images of circles in various forms, such as the designs on the doctor's sweater, the shower drain and Rachel's apartment number, appear throughout the movie.
Brian Cox was the only actor considered to play Richard Morgan.
In the space of four years since the original Ringu (1998), the production budget multiplied roughly forty-fold.
Jennifer Love Hewitt was offered the role of Rachel Keller, but turned it down.
Production designer Tom Duffield relied on Andrew Wyeth's paintings as his main visual inspiration for the film.
When Rachel is looking off her balcony at the units of other residents, she focuses on one apartment containing a seated man with his left leg in a cast. This recalls Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), in which James Stewart, with his left leg in a cast, peers into his neighbors' apartments.
A Bad Religion sticker is partially visible in Noah's locker in the A/V room; Gore Verbinski(credited as Gore Verbinsky) directed the 1994 music video for "American Jesus" from Bad Religion's 1993 Epitaph Records release "Recipe For Hate". Other stickers visible in the locker include those for Epitaph bands Pennywise, The Refused, Lars Frederiksen And The Bastards, and Descendents.
Since the release of "The Ring" in Canada, the story of the cursed video has become very popular in some provinces, and the story is passed by kids in school as a rumor that it actually happened.
While the film takes place in Seattle, in earlier drafts of the screenplay, it originally took place in Massachusetts and Maine (for the scenes involving the Morgan family).
Amber Tamblyn (Katie) and David Dorfman (Aidan) also appeared together in the television series Joan of Arcadia (2003). Like in "The Ring", Tamblyn's character babysat Dorfman's character, who had a fixation on death.
The original WGA-approved credits listed Hiroshi Takahashi (writer of the original 1998 screenplay for Ringu (1998)) but his name is absent from the final print.
During the scene in which Rachel is on the balcony looking into windows of another building, shown on the TV of the third window she peaks at, is a Taiwanese soft drink commercial, featuring actor Takeshi Kaneshiro. This commercial is made in the early-'90s, when Takeshi's career was mainly in Taiwan as a pop idol.
A lot of alleged "ghost sightings" videos have had a ghost that copied Samara's "look," with the hair obscuring the face. The trend suggests the videos are hoaxes.
When Noah searches through the archives on Anna Morgan, Japanese writing is seen briefly on paper. This Japanese writing ties back to the original Japanese film, Ringu(1998).
The October 3, 2001 draft of the screenplay credited Scott Frank as a writer.
Dr. Grasnik's grandson Darby originally had a line, but it was cut.
Scott Frank revised the screenplay.
The pen that Rachel Keller uses throughout the film is a Sensa.
Spoilers The trivia items below may give away important plot points.
To promote this film the studio placed copies of the mysterious "killer tape" at concerts and events. The tape had a label directing whoever watched it to a web site (www.anopenletter.com) supposedly written by a pedophile who'd seen the tape and was now trying to warn others about his impending fate (this was the character portrayed by Chris Cooper in a sub-plot deleted from the theatrical release). The website contained links that led to other movie-related mock-ups, including a page written by one of Katie's friends who was unaware of Katie's death and believed she'd been kidnapped or run away, and a page written by scientists who researched psychic phenomena involving television transmissions. When the movie was released, Dreamworks deleted all the Web pages and denied ever having anything to do with them.
The ring shape motif is unique to the American remake. Kôji Suzuki, the author of the novel upon which the movies are based, says that the title referred to the cyclical nature of the curse, since, for the viewer to survive after watching it, the video tape must be copied and passed around over and over.
Numerous scenes were cut down or entirely cut from the film before release. Some scenes were present only at test screenings. Others showed up in previews or the "Don't Watch This" short film on the DVD.
- Samara's line "Everyone will suffer" was cut out the film but can be heard in the previews.
- The bathtub suicide was much more graphic.
- Samara's murder lasted longer in the original cut of the film and was much more brutal than what audiences saw in theatres. Originally, the plastic bag over Samara's head failed to subdue her, leading her killer to repeatedly strike her in the head with a large rock (which can be seen lying on the ground in some shots of the well). The rock only weakened Samara, and finally, her killer resorted to slamming her head against the side of the well before dumping her in.
- Some test screenings contained scenes at the beginning and end of the film involving a murderer played by Chris Cooper. The first scene involved the murderer approaching Rachel, asking her to help clear his name, claiming he is rehabilitated and no longer a threat to society. She knows he's lying and refuses. Then at the end of the movie, she pays him a visit and drops off a copy of the video. Noah goes over to Rachel's apartment and trying to find the video. When the babysitter hears him say it's a homemade video and it might be in the bedroom, she starts laughing. He finds the distorted pictures of the kids from the beginning in Rachel's room. One of the pictures shows the sign for the Inn. This leads into another scene where Noah goes to the rental cabins and finds the body of the cabin manager dead in a canoe on the lake.
- There was a scene where Rachel asks crab-fishers on the island about the Morgans. They say that no one could get a good haul when Samara was around. There's additional material with Rachel in Cabin 12 where she tries to watch TV, but the reception is terrible and finds a journal left by the previous guests (similar to the Japanese film Ringu (1998) and the original Japanese novel Ring by Kôji Suzuki).
- Visual effects supervisor Charles Gibson said in an interview that another sequence was "previsualized", but cut from the film. "It was an all-CG montage of the 'Ring' tape being created from a point of view inside the VCR.
- There is an alternate scene for Rachel and Ruth's discussion at the funeral, Rachel searches Katie's room and finds the ticket for photos. Ruth comes in and they discuss information Rachel found out from some of Katie's friends. Ruth becomes frustrated and angry about not knowing why Katie died, and charges towards the closet and explains to Rachel that she found Katie there. There is a flashback with Ruth finding Katie's corpse in the closet (same flashback used in the funeral scene).
When Noah and Rachel return to the inn, at the end of the movie, there's a sign that reads "Closed until further notice", under the "Shelter Mountain Inn" sign. In an earlier cut of the film, the cabin manager dies from watching the tape (see "Alternate Versions"). Probably that's the reason for the inn being closed.
Playing the movie frame by frame, in the exact moment when Katie Embry is scared to death at the beginning of the movie, you can see all the images that appear on the video. Each image appears for just a fraction of a second. The effect is repeated at the end of the movie.
Chris Cooper appeared in a small role but was cut from the film. In an interview Cooper told Sci Fi Wire: "It was what they call a bookend. I opened the movie and closed the movie. It was two scenes, and I was a serial rapist or a murderer who deserved everything that was coming to him. Because [Naomi Watts' character] was a journalist, I was trying to convince her that I had found God and I had straightened my ways and rehabilitated myself. I was looking for an out, and she didn't buy it, correctly so. Then in the tail end, she pays me a visit and gives me the tape." "What I hear is when they ran the screenings, it was more a disruption than anything. They said, 'Well, where's Cooper? We want to see more of him.' So they cut it all." Cooper's face can be seen briefly in the film on the front page of a newspaper in Noah's loft.
Its 59 minutes before Brian Cox makes a proper appearance in the film. Even then, he only gets 4 minutes of screentime, in spite of prominent billing.
During the climax of the film when Naomi Watts' character is knocked into the well by the television, Samara very briefly appears on the screen just as Rachel turns around to look at the television.