-An alternate theory states that the blood in the water is indicative of Samara as she falls, injured, into the well (the blood being the result of having possibly banged her head as she fell, or from the bludgeoning she received from Anna in an earlier draft of the screenplay).

-inteferon's viral vestibule has posted an analysis of chairs as they appear on the videotape vs. those that appear throughout the film. The conclusion of that analysis was that at least one of the chairs on the videotape refers to the one in Samara's loft.

-The comb / switching mirror sequence was lifted directly from the Japanese version of the cursed video and was explained in Ring 2. Shizuko (Anna Morgan in the remake) was slowly becoming insane, and had taken to standing before the mirror and brushing her hair for hours on end. Sadako (Samara in the remake) came up behind her and, as a childish prank, switched the mirror's position on the wall.

-The fly scene mentioned above is significant in that when Noah spies a fly on the door to the records room, it is moving in the same circular pattern as the one on the Samara tape. A minor detail for the viewer, but a relatively important one for Samara herself -- Noah is about to learn of her background, and it is the first time in the movie that her name is spoken aloud. The fly also shares a possible connection to the abstract scene with the maggots (see below).

As for why events from Rachel's investigation appear on the tape, two reasons immediately spring to mind: (1) Samara saw the images in her mind, and they appeared unbidden on the tape; (2) They were deliberately inserted to feed Rachel's curiosity, convincing her to continue her investigation.

II. ABSTRACT IMAGES. These include:

notes

-The "severed fingers" scene consists of seven twitching fingers inside of a box. Theory: seven fingers for seven days, severed and twitching to represent pain, inside a box to represent being trapped in the well. "Pain" here is used subjectively, as records from her days at ECPH indicate that Samara was completely insensitive to pain.

-Often confused for a piece of string, what Rachel actually coughs up is an old-style electrode. Remember that Samara aims to make people suffer as she had, a phenomenon which also manifests itself in the seven-day death sentence. The electrode, as well as the abstract "intestine" image on the videotape, may represent the psychological discomfort Samara felt at being subjected to the numerous tests conducted at Eola County Psychiatric Hospital.

Others have theorized that the mouth belongs to a horse or a human / horse hybrid, and we are witnessing a representation of the pain that Samara inflicts on both. Yet another theory is that the intestine resembles an umbilical cord, which would indicate either a prenatal connection to the horses or the notion that watching the cursed video allows something to be born inside the viewer (a nod, perhaps, to the original novels).

-Not only are maggots flies in the larval stage (which ties into the concrete image of the fly mentioned above), they are also found near death and decaying matter. Thus, the maggots may represent Samara's own death. Conversely, they could be how she sees humanity, or a representation of the death that she will deliver unto it.

III. AMBIGUOUS IMAGES

-In the "Don't Watch This" featurette on the DVD, we see a cut scene where Noah finds a rotted piece of something (the innkeeper's lunch?) that immediately cuts to the maggot scene from the video. But this scene also shows the maggots morph into human beings, implying that there could be more to this scene than just rotted food (see "maggot" notes above).

-The DVD featurette shows another cut scene, where Rachel passes the exact place where the dog / goat appeared on the videotape. However, this still doesn't explain whether the image on the tape was something that Samara actually saw, or a representation of something (the general malaise she brings to Moesko, the pain she apparently causes all sentient things, etc.) that happens to incorporate an actual locale.

See inteferon's viral vestibule for screenshots from the cursed video and Don't Watch This

Q: Are you sure your analysis of the images is correct?

A: The explanations you've seen here, which hinge on Samara possessing precognitive abilities and the images that Rachel saw on the tape being an extension of this, are not without their share of detractors. See here for a debate that originally appeared on the Ring forum, with arguments for and against what you've just read.

Q: Why didn't Rachel and Aidan die after watching the tape? And why did they copy it?

A: Rachel didn't die because she'd stumbled across the cure: copying the tape and showing it to someone else. She realized this when she spotted the copy she'd thrown under the chair, and quickly had Aidan make a copy of his own.

Q: Why not simply watch the tape and do nothing so that the curse may end?

A: It sounds easy enough, until you factor in a theme from both the remake and the Japanese originals: parents' love for their children being used against them. It's what caused Asakawa in Ring, Rachel in The Ring, and Ando in Rasen to agree to spread the video curse. There are bound to people who choose death rather than contributing to the curse -- but if the person who needed saving your son or daughter, what would you do to save the life of your child?

Q: After people watch the tape, why do their faces look blurred in photos?

A: Some have conjectured that the faces appear distorted as if Samara were viewing them through the water of the well. Others posit that this phenomenon is the result of electromagnetic interference caused by watching the videotape (certainly a valid interpretation given Samara's apparent ability to "transmit" herself as a television signal). Still another theory states that this is nothing more than a holdover from the original Ring, where the facial distortion is an indicator of having been "marked" by the video curse.

Q: Why do people who watch the tape get nosebleeds and draw pictures?

A: One could argue that the closer one gets to the seven-day deadline, the more intense Samara's presence becomes, to which the body reacts both physically (nosebleeds) and mentally (dreams). Another way to interpret this is that, like the seven-day deadline itself, this is another example of Samara wanting whomever watches the video to experience what she herself went through. If that were the case, the nosebleeds could represent any number of things, including electroshock, starvation, prolonged submersion in water, or physical injuries, any of which Samara had arguably experienced.

As for the scribbling, this appears to be either a knee-jerk reaction to Samara's growing presence, or the mind's attempt to process information that had been "uploaded" when watching the video. In either case, Samara continues to "show things" to her victims, with the result that they begin to draw images that had appeared on the videotape (the exception to this being Aidan, who drew much more than appeared on the tape. It has been conjectured that this is the result of his apparent psychic abilities allowing him to form a unique bond with Samara, resulting in him keying into images such as the Morgans' house).

It should also be noted that when victims begin drawing over the faces of photographs it is no random scribbling -- they are drawing Samara's long hair over the faces.

Q: Why were Noah's curse symptoms fewer compared to Rachel and Aidan?

A: While Rachel and Aidan experienced visions, burns, nosebleeds, and (in Rachel's case) even dreamt of coughing up medical equipment, Noah appeared to have gotten off with merely a nosebleed. The reason for this is that either the additional phenomena happened offscreen, Rachel and Aidan -- the two people shown to experience more pronounced symptoms than Noah, et. al -- also had the greatest "connection" to Samara. After all, it was Rachel that would free Samara from the well, while Aidan possessed psychic abilities that allowed him to "key into" Samara's presence. Thus, the additional symptoms are perhaps an indicator of getting closer to the power that is Samara, in much the same way that people who approached her in life would become bombarded with horrific images.

Q: Why didn't Rachel's symptoms disappear after copying the tape?

A: Copying the tape and showing it to someone means that you will no longer die: by no stretch does it mean that Samara becomes powerless, or even that she'll leave you alone for that matter (case in point, the events in Ring Two).

Q: Do videotapes really have control tracks and images "off to the side"?

A: In a word, yes. See here for the technical explanation.

Q: How did Aidan know about his cousin Katie's death beforehand?

A: Either through the extrasensory abilities he apparently possesses, or the fact that (as he himself stated) Katie told him she would die in one week.

Q: When watching the video, why did Aidan see Samara come out from the well?

A: This is a direct holdover from the original Japanese film, but with a difference. In the Japanese version, Asakawa (Rachel) watched the video alone a second time, upon which a hand could be seen snaking out from the well. The third time the video was watched (by her son), we saw a hand and part of a head emerge. So what does this phenomenon mean?

Two theories come to mind: (1) The closer one gets to reaching the seven-day deadline, the closer Samara comes to emerging from the well, and (2) The more times the video is watched, the closer Samara comes to emerging. The former seems by far the more likely; otherwise, repeated viewings of the tape would result in Samara emerging from the well much sooner than the seven days are up.

Q: What did Aidan mean by "You weren't supposed to help her"?

A: This scene, which was unique to the remake, was probably meant to illustrate that Aidan knew full well what would happen at the end of the seventh day: he and his mother would be killed, but the curse would be over and Samara's reign of terror finished. By helping Samara, however, Rachel set into motion a potentially never-ending cycle of person after person watching the tape, copying it and passing it along.

Q: What did Aidan mean by "She never sleeps"?

A: A clever play on words, I believe. In life, Samara was a chronic insomniac, and similarly, even in death she knows no sleep. Rachel believes that by removing the body from the well she has put Samara's vengeful spirit to rest, but in trying to put halt the curse, she has unwittingly allowed it to progress to the next phase: the propagation of the deadly videotape.

Q: How did Katie's friends die if they weren't anywhere near a TV?

A: If we adhere to the idea that Samara must emerge from a television, one could posit that Scott and Stacy had some sort of global navigation system in their car that Samara could have utilized. Or perhaps Samara can transmit herself as a signal that can similarly emerge from a radio. And when no such electrical equipment is available she can to make do with another form of transmitter -- the electrical output of the human brain. If this were the case, though, it does raise the question of why she'd bother using a TV at all.

Q: Why was Becca walking behind that curtain on wheels?

A: This scene is taken directly from the Japanese Ring 2. In a flashback, we learn that Masami (Becca in the remake) had been in the bathroom, but returned just in time to see Sadako emerge from the television and claim Tomoko (Katie in the remake) as her victim. This incident was so psychologically crushing that not only was she institutionalized, from that time on she was deathly afraid to go near a television set. Thus, whenever she would leave her room, the staff would always wheel a screen in front of her to block out the TV.

Q: How did Becca know that Rachel had four days left?

A: Again, if we look to Ring 2 we see that even if you don't watch the videotape, being exposed to Sadako's energies is enough to "infect" you in some fashion. In Masami's case, simply viewing Sadako caused a portion of Sadako's energies to "break off" and lodge itself inside her mind (as evidenced in the scenes showing Dr. Kawajiri's experiments). Becca appears to have been similarly affected. In the remake, there is an audible rumble when Rachel touches Becca's hand. Perhaps it is in this moment that Becca is somehow able to key into the energies buried inside Rachel, and to divine that she had four days left.

But four days until what? This is where opinions differ.

Some believe that the formula for saving yourself from the video curse is set in stone: First you must copy the tape, then you must show it to someone else. If that were the case, while Rachel had already made a copy for Noah, she hadn't yet shown it to him. Thus, when Rachel visited Becca in the hospital she still hadn't been saved, and had four days to live (and was only saved when Aidan watched the video for himself. But then, of course, one could argue that Aidan had seen it of his own volition, and hadn't actually been shown it).

The other way of thinking is that the remake follows the Japanese original: so long as copying and showing of the tape occur, it doesn't matter what order these take place in. Rachel had first shown the tape to Noah and then made him a copy, thus fulfilling the requirements. Becca merely stated that Rachel will understand in four days, which in this scenario means that she will learn of Samara firsthand (as, arguably, Becca herself had).

Q: Does the name "Samara" have any special meaning?

A: Several. It's the name of a wing-shaped fruit of the ash, elm, or maple trees (from Latin, meaning "elm seed"). It's a city of western Russia on the Volga River. In Arabic it means "To talk in the evening." As a name, Samara is reported to come from the Hebrew shamar ha, meaning "Guarded by God." Some also think that perhaps it is a reference to the story "The Appointment in Samarra" by W. Somerset Maugham.

Q: What's with these online documents? Was Samara adopted or not?

A: While The Ring Two revealed that Samara was in fact adopted, documents appearing both online and in the first Ring give a glimpse of an earlier, abandoned storyline in which Anna gave birth to Samara herself. "Parent had infertility problems and mom had multiple miscarriages," one such document stated. "Family traveled to Europe, where with the help of a specialist overseas mom was able to conceive."

It's worth noting that the plotline of Samara's adoption was introduced in The Ring in the scene with Moesko Island's Doctor Grasnik -- a scene which was added following at least one test screening, and which was not in the original script.

Q: What did that paper in Samara's file with the Asian writing on it mean?

A: Because my specialty is Japanese and not Chinese, I was glad to have some help from Huw Lines and jackysee with the following translations (read top-bottom, right-left):

                                 

line 2
weak physical condition

Huw:	Under shen ti xu de ("weak physical condition"), the next character looks like mo, meaning "pulse."

line 3
special prescription

J:	A character compound repeated in lines 4-6 translates to three sen (its Japanese reading). In Japan, a sen was a small monetary unit that is no longer used. I believe it's being used here in Chinese as a unit of measurement.
Huw:	The sen is qian (pronounced 'chian') in Chinese and in modern usage means "money." But it is indeed a unit used in measuring weights.

line 4
peony: 3 qian

line 5
Variant of  ripe (?) + earth: 3 qian

Huw:	"Ripe earth" refers to root of foxglove (Rehmannia glutinosa).
J:	According to an online translation program, Rehmannia glutinosa "raises the blood and nourishes the yin."

line 6

J:	Looks familiar, but couldn't place. Variant of shi in reishi mushroom (?): 3 qian.
Huw:	Possibly cocklebur (Xanthium Strumatium).

licorice: 3 mg.

Isoline, a regular visitor to the site, had this to say on the subject: "These medicinal herbs look to be part of a cleansing medicine much like an anti-parasitic or a colonic (for lack of a better thought). They would have 'opened' channels in the body physically and in connection with the philosophy of enhancing one's Qi forces, probably metaphysically."

 

Q: Does Samara have a middle name?

A: This is a bit tricky. While Samara's birth certificate contains no indication of a middle name, one of her thermographic creations (the one with all the needles) had some patient information written in the lower left corner by attending physician Dr. Scott. The picture clearly shows a middle name abbreviated with what looks like an E; it is also, however, the only document to suggest that Samara was anything other than simply "Samara Morgan." Thus, it remains uncertain whether Dr. Scott knew something we don't, he was simply misinformed, or one of the staff working on the film made an error.

                                 

 

Q: How did Samara make those strange X-ray looking pictures?

A: The pictures are a nod toward the powers that Samara's counterpart Sadako possessed in the original film. One of Sadako's abilities was nensha, the focusing of will to produce an image on film or some other medium. It was through nensha that Sadako -- and by extension, Samara -- was able to create the cursed videotape. In Samara's case file, we see nensha referred to as "projected thermography," though it is more commonly called thoughtography (the term adopted by Fukurai Tomokichi, who coined the term nensha) or psychography.

As for the needles appearing in the thermographic picture referenced above, they may be representative of the various injections and tests that Samara was subjected to during her time at Eola County Psychiatric Hospital.

 

Q: Was that steam rising from Samara's hands on the SM0015 tape?

A: That would be smoke from the doctor's cigarette. The ashtray is plainly visible in some of the other shots.

 

Q: How does Samara kill? And how / why are her victims' bodies moved?

A: These two questions have taken up several threads and countless pages on the Ring forum. See here for a distillation of the various resulting ideas.

 

Q: Why didn't Samara kill Becca like she killed Katie?

A: Samara kills those who watch the tape, which Becca did not do.

 

Q: Was Samara's goal to be freed from the well?

A: This element of the movie has been hotly contested. Some think that freeing her body from the well was little more than a red herring. Others believe that Samara's spirit had to be "freed" before she could wreak her vengeance upon the world. My own view (which is merely one of several possibilities) is that her goal was not so much to be freed from the well as it was to have Rachel kick-start the spread of her video curse.

 

Q: What is the song that Samara sings next to the well?

A: The song also appears during the film's ending credits. Turning on the subtitles on the DVD reveals the following lyrics:

Here we go
The world is spinning
When it stops
It's just beginning

Sun comes up
We laugh and we cry
Sun goes down
And then we all die

The musical merry-go-round in Samara's room appears to be a refrain of this melody.

 

Q: What does Samara mean when she says "But he doesn't know"?

A: Some have speculated that this is where Samara's missing line comes in:

SAMARA:   But he doesn't know.
DOCTOR: Know what?
...
DOCTOR: Samara?
SAMARA:   Everyone will suffer.

 

Q: Why does Samara come out of the TV at Noah's place looking fully grown?

A: This may have something to do with a scene in Ring 2 (which was obviously an influence to the remake) which stated that while Sadako was thrown into the well 30 years ago, she had only died in the last two. Perhaps Kruger and Verbinski's intention was to borrow this idea, and show that Samara had actually matured in the well. Brr!

On the other hand, ringworld visitor Jason suggests that the answer might be something far more straightforward -- that her increased stature was the result of emerging from Noah's oversized television.

Finally, Mandi Apple posits that this is merely another difference of Samara's post-mortem appearance. "I doubt she had those eyes in life," she quips.

 

Q: What's up with the hideous-looking corpses of Samara's victims?

A: The first thing that sprang to mind was that they were bloated and semi-rotten as if submerged underwater for seven days...but this theory was proven incorrect thanks to some comments from Rick Baker himself, the man who provided the makeup effects for the film. Click here to read his exclusive interview.

 

Rachel and Noah

Q: What did Rachel mean when she said Samara "just wanted to be heard"?

A: In life, Samara tended to bombard those around her with mental imagery in an attempt to communicate. In death, however, the need to be heard extends to the video curse -- Samara wants people to know exactly what she went through, hence the seven-day death sentence, the nosebleeds (a side-effect of electroshock therapy, which Samara may have been subjected to in the ward), and ultimately the manner in which her victims meet their end.

 

Q: Why was Rachel researching Moesko Island on her computer's C drive?

A: Either she was searching archived info. or this was somebody's mistake.

 

Q: Who was that girl leaving Noah's apartment and why did Rachel hide from her?

A: While sometimes mistaken for a suddenly fully grown Samara, this person is in fact Beth, Noah's assistant (the one who kissed him on the cheek in an earlier scene). And she was going up to his apartment, not leaving it. As for why Rachel hid from her, there are a number of different theories ranging from shock to spite to sheer inability to act.

 

Q: What did Noah mean when he said Samara was "not alone" in the barn?

A: He meant that she was in the barn with the only friend she had in her short life--the television set (note the dramatic pan toward the television following this line).

 

Q: What was with that burned-looking picture of a tree on the barn wall?

A: Samara created it by either physically burning it with her hands (recall the burnt impressions where she grabbed Rachel and Aidan) or using her powersof thermography. This ability, as mentioned above, allows one to create an image using the power of the mind.

As for the tree, this was naturally significant to Samara in that it marked the location of her demise. The images on the videotape would indicate that Samara had powers of foresight; she was probably aware (at least on some level) of her own death.

 

Anna and Richard Morgan

Q: Why were Anna's clothes so old-fashioned looking?

A: While some have complained that her clothes are too anachronistic for someone who lived just a few decades ago, it's entirely possible that they were merely inspired by riding attire.

 

Q: Is it true that Anna had 66 miscarriages?

A: No. The document shown in this scene merely notes that a particular miscarriage had occurred in 1966, with the year being abbreviated as "66."

 

Q: If Anna loved Samara then why would she kill her?

A: One theory is that being around Samara was causing Anna to go insane; she had little choice but to kill her daughter to stop the images from invading her mind. Another is that Anna feared what her daughter was becoming and killed her in order to stop it.

 

Q: Why did Richard Morgan suddenly decide to commit suicide?

A: Following the deaths of Anna, Samara and the horses, things returned to normal on Moesko Island. Once Rachel appeared speaking of a possible "message" from Anna, however, Richard realized that the Samara's evil had begun again. And rather than re-experience it, he opted to take his own life.

 

Q: Why did the horses kill themselves?

A: Either the "horrible" images that Samara puts into peoples' heads are intensified in horses, or (as Richard Morgan stated) they are able to sense things before humans do, and the sensory overload is simply too much for them. The line "The horses keep her up at night" (said of Samara at being forced to sleep in the barn) indicates that Samara's "scent" is enough to cause them to panic. Recall the reaction of the horse on the ferry: Rachel had watched the video and Samara had placed her mark upon her, causing the horse to run wild.

Another theory is that Samara hated the horses because her father loved them more than he loved her, and so she slew them out of spite. This, however, would not explain the reaction of the horse on the ferry.

 

Misc.

Q: Did you notice the emphasis on "ring" symbology throughout the film?

A: One would be hard-pressed to miss it, given that it was present in everything from static in the DreamWorks logo to manholes, shower drains and coffee stains, to the halos of light that flash onscreen whenever someone dies. Note that static rings also pop up during Noah's research, and in the scene where the horse jumps off the ferry.

 

Q: What was with the flash of images at the very end of the movie?

A: Given that it was the same as those seen by Katie when she opened the door to her room and met her demise, it would seem to imply that we the audience are the next victims of the video curse.

 

Q: Wasn't there supposed to be a scene with a canoe?

A: This was another scene that was shot (and appeared in the trailer) but was cut from the finished film. In it, Noah returns to the rental cabins and pulls the canoe to shore. Inside the canoe he finds the body of the cabin manager, who had watched the tape but failed to make a copy. The scene now appears in the 15-minute feature on the DVD.

 

Q: What's this about a scene involving a child killer being cut from the film?

A: Actor Chris Cooper was brought in for a deleted subplot in which he played a convicted child killer. If you look carefully, his character appears in the newspaper that Noah is reading just before Samara pays him a visit. The headline itself would appear to be an in joke: It reads Parole Pending After Hea-- followed by the ring of the coffee cup. For more, see this article at sci-fi.com.

The child killer subplot, by the way, differs yet again from the ending as it appeared in the original script (and as a deleted scene on the DVD). In that version, Rachel makes a copy of the tape and places it on a video-store shelf for unsuspecting customers to watch.

 

Q: Was that really Daveigh as Samara coming out of the TV?

A: Yes and no. The following is courtesy of a source who was involved with the film: "For the most part it is Daveigh. Her stunt double [was] a small woman, about Daveigh's size. She had very muscular arms / legs though, so she climbed out of the actual TV, but also, Daveigh did some of that as well, it was mixed in somehow. But it is Daveigh standing up, walking and moving forward. Everyone says it couldn't be her because of height or whatever, but it is all the way Gore worked the camera angles. It's Daveigh at the end as well but with major face makeup on. They did a cast of her head / body...and it was Daveigh's feet, etc."

 

Q: Why didn't Daveigh want to return for The Ring Two?

A: Actually, she did. Daveigh was very appreciative of the positive feedback from fans, and when her representatives were contacted by DreamWorks about reprising the role, she immediately expressed interest. As the script evolved, however, all dialogue and flashback scenes of Samara as she was in life were cut, leaving only "dead" Samara (in heavy makeup) and stunt scenes, for which DreamWorks wanted to use a double. As such, Daveigh didn't return for The Ring Two not because she didn't want to or because she refused to; there was simply no role for her. (This information, by the way, comes right from the source.)

As it turns out, Daveigh ended up receiving screen credit for the role through the use of pre-existing footage left over from The Ring.

 

Q: What are the "subliminal subtitles"?

A: On the Don't Watch This featurette, closed captioning reveals discrepancies with the following three phrases:

3:26  Ruth talking to Rachel. "Something scared the shit out of her" is muffled and offscreen.
3:39  SM0015. Samara's line "I see them" becomes "Release me."
5:25  Rachel in the video store. "I only have one day left" is cut.

 

Q: What is anopenletter.com?

A: A promotional website for The Ring. See here for more on this and other sites used during the underground promotional phase of the film.

 

Q: Will any other movies from the Ring creators be remade?

Dark Water (from a story by Suzuki Koji, directed by Nakata Hideo) has already been remade, and rights to Nakata's film Chaos have been optioned by Universal.

Meanwhile, Dimension Films (a subsidiary of Miramax) has optioned the rights to adapt Suzuki Koji's Adrift for the big screen. Originally appearing in the Dark Water collection of short stories, Adrift (Japanese title: Hyouryuusen, lit. "drifting boat") tells the story of a boat found lost at sea, the crew of which has mysteriously vanished. The Ring producers Neal Edelstein and Mike Macari are said to be in negotiations to produce. A release date has yet to be announced.

 

Q: In your opinion, who's scarier: Sadako or Samara?

A: Samara had some great special effects, but Sadako had both the walk and the EYE. As much as I enjoyed Samara, I'd have to go with Sadako.

 

Several people contributed to the exchange of ideas that lead to this FAQ. Special thanks go to Huw, Isoline, Lithium, JyPsy, mikejonas, inteferon, miharu, samaras well, Richard Morgan, jackysee and the many many others that I unfortunately can't list all at once.