Yes, 6 out of 10. It's the damp, quiet kind of fear that makes you wary of a ringing phone.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
6 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
High
You will flinch at the phone and think about videotapes for a couple of days.
DOG
Dog: fine
No dog dies, though the horse on the ferry does not make it.
Ruling: Watch it in daylight, keep your phone away from you, and expect many jump scares.
The Ring runs one hundred and fifteen minutes. A Seattle journalist watches a cursed videotape, a phone whispers a deadline at her, and she spends the week researching a horse breeder.
The premise, briefly
A Seattle journalist investigates a videotape said to doom anyone who watches it within a week, then watches it herself and gets seven days to figure out why.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Rachel finds Samara's body in a well and buries it, but the curse does not stop. Samara kills Noah, and Rachel survives only because she copied the tape. She helps her son Aidan make his own copy.
The scene you're dreading
Noah's death, near the end: when his week is up, Samara crawls out of his television and kills him. You see her emerge from the screen.
The dog
No dog dies in The Ring. A horse jumps off a ferry and dies, and that is the animal death to know about.
The Ring is a slow mystery with plenty of jump scares, and the ending is sad but not gory.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
Seven days, and a phone with opinions
Two teenagers, Katie and Becca, talk about an urban legend: a cursed videotape kills whoever watches it a week later. Katie saw it a week ago, and that night something kills her. At the funeral, her mother Ruth asks Katie's aunt Rachel, a journalist in Seattle, to look into what happened. Rachel finds that Katie's friends all died in odd accidents at the same time as Katie. She goes to the Shelter Mountain Inn, where the group watched the tape, and finds it herself. The tape is full of strange images. As soon as it ends, the room phone rings, and a voice whispers "Seven days". Rachel is skeptical at first, but the supernatural occurrences start soon enough to change her mind.
Rachel gets help from her ex-husband Noah, a video analyst. He watches the tape too, and Rachel makes him a copy. She spots a woman in the footage who turns out to be Anna Morgan, a horse breeder. Anna took her own life after some of her horses walked into the water off Moesko Island and drowned. Meanwhile, their son Aidan, who is eight, also watches the tape. Rachel takes the ferry to Moesko Island to talk to Anna's husband Richard, and on the way a horse on the ferry throws itself overboard. She learns that the Morgans adopted a girl named Samara after Anna had four miscarriages. Samara could burn images into objects and into people's minds, and she tormented her parents and the horses. Noah goes to Eola Psychiatric Hospital and finds Samara's file, which mentions a missing video.
A well under the floorboards
When Rachel returns to the Morgan house, she finds a forged birth certificate. It shows that Samara was not Anna and Richard's biological daughter. She also finds the missing video, in which Samara apologizes and says that they will not stop. Richard insists that Samara was evil, and then he electrocutes himself. Rachel and Noah find a loft in the barn where the Morgans kept Samara away from the world, and behind the wallpaper there is a picture of a tree that Rachel recognizes from the Shelter Mountain Inn. They go back to the inn and find a well beneath the floorboards. Rachel falls in and sees a vision of Anna dumping Samara down it, where she survived for a week. Samara's body floats to the surface, and after Rachel is pulled out they give her a proper burial.
The TV was the exit all along
At home, Aidan warns Rachel that helping Samara was a mistake. Noah's week is up, and Samara crawls out of his television and kills him. This is the scene most people brace for. It comes near the end, and you see her emerge from the screen. Rachel then understands that Samara's apology was really a confession. The burial did not help, because Samara wants the tape to keep spreading. Rachel was spared because she made a copy and handed it to Noah. Now she has to decide what to do about Aidan, who has also watched it.
The ending, explained
Rachel realizes she survived because she passed on a copy of the tape, which is what Samara wanted all along. Burying Samara did not end the curse. Noah is dead, and Aidan has also seen the tape. Rachel helps Aidan make a copy, and when he asks what will happen to the person who watches it, she does not answer.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: No dog dies, though the horse on the ferry does not make it.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is The Ring scary?
Yes, The Ring is a 6 out of 10 with high dread. It has many jump scares and a cold, damp atmosphere. There is very little gore, and the ending is sad.
How does The Ring end?
Samara crawls out of a TV and kills Noah. Rachel survives only because she copied the tape, and she helps her son Aidan copy it for someone else without telling him what happens to the viewer.
Does the dog die in The Ring?
No, no dog dies in The Ring. A horse jumps off a ferry and dies, so the animal death is a horse.
Is there a post-credits scene in The Ring?
No. The Ring has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Who is Samara in The Ring?
Samara Morgan is the adopted daughter of Anna and Richard Morgan. She could put images into people's minds, and Anna dropped her in a well, where she lived for a week. The tape comes from her.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of The Ring is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
You do not have to watch The Ring to find out what is on the tape. Install Scaredy Cat and it will blur horror for you before you see it.
