By Robert Klimper |Student Writer|

Moviegoers will once again fear the ring of a phone with the third new movie “Rings”, now playing in theaters.

The newest addition to “The Ring” series of movies, despite being apart of the franchise one does not need to worry about seeing the previous films to understand the premise.

“Rings” does have aspects of the story from the previous two movies, but explains it well enough for new audience.

According to the storyline, after one watches a cursed VHS tape, they have seven days left to live until the ghost girl Samara comes and takes their life.

The only way to avoid the fate of the seven day time limit is to make a copy of the film and show it to someone else, moving the curse and freeing the original viewer.

It would not be unreasonable to think that in this digital age, the cursed VHS tape would be an outdated way to spread a supernatural death sentence.

Yet, until a college professor decides to perform experiments on the cursed footage, it has been confined to an outdated form of media.

The film delves more into the background of the ghost Samara and why she kills, as well as looking into her family history.

“Rings” uses similar film techniques that were present in the first film, primarily the use of a blue and green color scheme, in this case it comes into effect when Julia (Matilda Lutz) is given the curse.

The blue and green color scheme is meant to represent a feeling of melancholy and desperation, something that was present in Samara’s life.

Director F. Javier Gutiérrez has it so that each scene that Julia is in for the most of the film is saturated with hues of dark blue and green, giving a dreary feeling to most scenes.

For scenes that take place before the curse is put on Julia and whenever she is not on scene, the colors become warm and bright, changing the tone when the focus switches from someone who is cursed to someone who is not.

“Rings,” like the previous films in the franchise, makes heavy use of foreshadowing, sometimes something that was shown for a split second will even foreshadow a moment later in the film.

To make sure the effect is not lost on the viewer, heavy cuts to shots from the cursed VHS are shown whenever Julia views an area that they represent.

The sound of the film follows the way that many horror movies have been following, where when a scare is needed to be made the soundtrack quiets down and the normal sounds of breathing and walking are enhanced.

This style of sound mixing is something that shines in this movie, the sudden drop of any musical score leads to heighten sense of dread, as you start to take in the surroundings more and know that something scary is going to happen.

“Rings” is a movie that has moments of tension, but to anyone looking for scares or a deep plot may find the film to be lacking.