Honestly, I think The Ring (yes, the American remake) actually stands up pretty well and is a genuinely scary movie. It has plenty of cringe parts, the relationship drama was stupid and out of place, the whole overdone “spooky child” thing (with Aiden, not Samara, who really was terrifying) etc. It wasn’t perfect. But the horror part really was good. It’s one of those things that has been both copied and satirized so much that it seems like just a massive cliche. But it wasn’t cliche at the time, at least not in American horror. The slow, determined and supernaturally inescapable girl in the TV emerging up out of the well and coming for you right through the medium that you thought would keep her separate, and the imagery and sound design they chose to frame it really was very good horror. I know people make fun of the video content of the deadly tape, but to me, it really is deeply unsettling imagery that gives me a certain feeling of the kind of tortured existence of Samara. It was decent story telling, and like I said, touched on some truly unsettling nerves.