I mean, there's horror movies that aren't scary that still fit into the genre. To say that this is a horror movie would be an insult to horror movies everywhere (even the bad ones). Because, quite frankly, it repeats most of what you already saw with nowhere near the same level of skill. I honestly don't know what this movie was meant to be.
Apparently that's too much to ask for as well. If you're not gonna use a cool idea to build your story around, at least give us an enjoyable horror movie with good atmosphere, tension and solid scares. Of course, though, because apparently this movie was made with sequels in mind (because of course it was, given that Paramount ran Paranormal Activity into the ground with its, almost, yearly sequels), we didn't get to see a, potentially, really cool movie. What has changed from 2002 (the release of the original remake) and 2017 (the year of this film's release) should have been the film's focal point and how easier it is for people to share things with each other nowadays. Because everything old is new again and, honestly, with the proliferation of smartphones, sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, among others, updating this story for a more modern world, honestly, seemed like a good idea. The Ring 2 was released 13 years ago, so, of course, at some point, this franchise was going to be revived. The sequel for the remake and the sequel for the Japanese original (Ringu) were released the same year, something that I did not know until now actually. A sequel made by the man responsible for the Japanese movies. It's obvious that the original remake was wildly successful so, obviously, it was followed up by a terrible sequel that all but killed the franchise. It was, honestly, quite something to see. I remember watching the original Ring remake in theaters and I remember the reaction of everyone when the girl came out of the TV. The surrealistic visuals of the contents of the tape were a strong suit as was the way the atmosphere was built throughout. It was actually one of the very few J-horror remakes that actually, in my opinion, to capture the spirit of the original movie it was based on (and book) while adding its own touches. Honestly, I was a fan of the original Ring. I wanted to watch a horror movie and, somehow, this was the one I settled on. So why, exactly, did I have to watch this tonight? Honestly, I have no fucking clue. I mean, really, I've been without Prime for nine months and, honestly, a lot of the movies that I wanna see were not gonna go away immediately. Man, a friend of mine recommended that I watch Bad Match (sort of a Tinder date from hell type of movie) and I had to be a stubborn asshole and watch this instead.