Rings (2017 film)

In 2013, on an airplane bound for Seattle, Carter reveals that he has watched Samara Morgan's cursed videotape. Kelly reveals she has seen the tape too, and asks Carter if he made a copy; he replies that he did not. Moments later, Samara causes the airplane to crash, killing Carter and everyone else aboard.

Two years later in 2015, a college professor, Gabriel Brown, buys Carter’s old VCR, discovering the videotape inside. Elsewhere, a student, Julia, sees her boyfriend, Holt, off to college, but she grows concerned when he ghosts her. Soon, a panicked girl, Skye, contacts her, she too is concerned about Holt. When Julia goes looking for Holt, she meets Gabriel, and finds a group of people known as the Sevens, who are involved in an experiment involving the cursed video. The Sevens film themselves watching the video before passing the footage to another person called a "tail".

Julia recognizes Skye instantly. She goes with Skye to her apartment to unknowingly watch the video. When Skye tries to force her to watch the video, Julia locks herself in the bathroom. Samara kills Skye in the apartment. Julia tries to rush out of the apartment, and when finally opening the door, she finds Holt on the other side. Holt reveals that he has watched the tape as well, and has 12 hours left. Julia watches his copy, and when she picks up the phone, she experiences a vision of a door. The phone burns a mark into her hand. Julia's version of the video cannot be copied, and contains additional images of a mysterious woman. She realizes they must cremate Samara's physical remains.

Gabriel photocopies the mark on Julia's hand and sends them to Sacrament Valley, where Samara was given a proper burial after the residents of Moesko Island refused to accept the remains. Julia and Holt find an unmarked tomb, but when they break in, they find it empty. They are caught and taken to a blind man named Galen Burke, who claims Samara's body was entombed by a local priest, but a flood came, leading the priest to rebury her in a potter's field outside town.

On the way to the field, Julia and Holt come upon a car crash, and learn that Gabriel was involved. He had realized the mark on Julia's hand is Braille and translated it. However, he is killed by a falling utility pole before he could warn them. After experiencing a vision of Evelyn, Julia and Holt return to town. Julia goes to the church, and discovers a hidden chamber beneath the bell tower. She finds evidence that Evelyn was imprisoned there while pregnant: held in captivity by the priest after being raped. She escaped eight months into the pregnancy.

Holt learns that Galen is the priest. Julia separately visits Galen, and explains her findings. He attacks her, revealing he is the priest as well as Samara's biological father. He blinded himself to escape the reach of her powers. Julia pushes him down the stairs, temporarily incapacitating him. Holt rushes to Galen's house, where he is knocked unconscious. Julia discovers Samara's skeleton behind a wall, and Galen tries to strangle her to prevent her from cremating Samara's remains. He claims that the cremation would unleash an unspeakable evil upon the world, and that he has killed several people who previously attempted to do the same. Suddenly, a swarm of cicadas fly in, summoning Samara through Julia's phone. Samara cures Galen's blindness, and kills him. Holt recovers and rushes to Julia's aid. That night, he and Julia cremate Samara's corpse, in an attempt to appease her spirit once and for all, and return home.

While Julia is in the shower, Holt notices a voicemail from Gabriel, who warns him of the Braille, which Holt begins to translate. In the bathroom, Julia peels away the skin where the mark was, revealing grey skin underneath. She begins to cough up black hair, from which a cicada is born. Meanwhile, Julia's copy of the cursed video is sent to everyone on her contact list, eventually going viral, despite Holt's futile attempts to disconnect the computer. As his computer glitches, the Braille translation is revealed to be "rebirth". Samara is reborn in Julia, who sees Samara's face in her mirror instead of her own.

In 2014, Paramount Pictures announced the third entry in The Ring series, originally titled The Ring 3D, directed by F. Javier Gutiérrez[3] after vacating the Crow remake.[4] In August, Paramount was in talks with Akiva Goldsman to write a third draft of the screenplay, which had previously been worked on by David Loucka and Jacob Aaron Estes.[5] In November, Gutiérrez posted an Instagram photo that showed that the title of the sequel had been changed to Rings.[6] Principal photography on the film began on March 23, 2015, in Atlanta, and wrapped on May 31.[7] Reshoots took place in July 2016. Post-production began in June 2015 at Paramount Studios,[8] and was concluded in November 2016.[9]

Paramount Pictures originally set the film for a November 13, 2015, release,[10] but the film was pulled from the schedule,[11] and rescheduled the release date to April 1, 2016.[12] The film was rescheduled again for release on October 28, 2016, to take the place of Paramount's previous October horror release staple, the Paranormal Activity series, which ended in 2015 with Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension at the time.[13] The film was delayed to February 3, 2017, most likely to avoid competition with Ouija: Origin of Evil, leaving the latter as the only horror film that debuted around Halloween 2016.[14][15]

Speaking at CinemaCon, Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore said that should the film prove successful, more sequels could recur annually, taking the place of Paramount's Paranormal Activity series.[34] These plans were left in doubt following Moore's departure from the company.[35] In a post-release interview, Moore's successor, Megan Colligan, said that "time will tell" if another sequel is in the cards.[36] Following Colligan's departure, there has been no update on a sequel.[37]

In September 2019, The Grudge (2020) director Nicolas Pesce expressed interest in a crossover film between The Grudge and the American The Ring film series, akin to Sadako vs. Kayako (2016).[38]

• Official website
• Rings at IMDb
• Rings at AllMovie
• Rings at Rotten Tomatoes
• Rings at Box Office Mojo