Rings

In Rings (2017), director F. Javier Gutiérrez returns to the infamous videotape mythos and asks a simple, cruel question: what happens when curiosity becomes a lifestyle? The film widens the legend into a modern urban nightmare, where the act of watching is no longer an accident—it’s a choice people chase, trade, and study like contraband.

Matilda Lutz anchors the story as Julia, whose relationship with Holt (Alex Roe) starts to fray when his fascination with the tape turns obsessive. What begins as a worried partner trying to pull someone back from the edge becomes something stranger: Julia steps into the curse herself, and the countdown stops feeling like a plot device and starts feeling like a relationship test with supernatural stakes.

Where the film sharpens its hook is in the idea that the tape still has secrets left—an unseen layer, a hidden “film within the film” that reframes what viewers think they know. That discovery pushes the horror away from simple inevitability and into investigation, turning the mythology into a puzzle box with consequences. It’s a smart way to keep the franchise’s central image—grainy footage, intrusive dread—alive in a world saturated with screens.

The supporting cast deepens the sense of a larger web around the curse, with familiar faces like Johnny Galecki and Vincent D'Onofrio adding human texture to the obsession. The film’s horror leans into atmosphere and escalation, pairing the franchise’s signature uncanny imagery with the anxieties of sharing, copying, and chasing forbidden media.

Ultimately, Rings plays like a cautionary tale about what we do for the people we love—and what we’re willing to watch, even when we’re warned not to. For horror fans, it’s an invitation to revisit a modern legend and see how far the curse can stretch when the scariest thing isn’t the tape itself, but the need to know what’s on it.