Julia becomes worried about her boyfriend Holt when he explores the dark urban legend of a mysterious videotape said to kill the watcher seven days after viewing. She sacrifices herself to save her boyfriend and in doing so makes a horrifying discovery: there is a "movie within the movie" that no one has ever seen before.
An interesting play up of the Ring mythology, but not a great horror on its own merits.
Also! The trailer for Rings makes it appear as if the movie is about one thing. As it turns out, that one thing takes place entirely in the last 90 seconds of the film.
Final rating: - Definitely not for me, but I sort of get the appeal.
Samara takes a back seat to, um, I can't really remember what exactly.
2017 version of the franchise adds digital files but conveniently forgets about the internet in an unnecessary continuation. Seriously, not one of the students would have tried to go viral by uploading the video to youtube or vimeo. The story takes a huge detour in what seems like it is supposed to be a fresh take on the franchise, but it just ends up treading water until the inevitable outcome. Samara the creeping kubuki dancer dead girl is barely in it, and that is a real shame. 4/10 seems mean so I gave it a 5/10, simply because even though it is a bit boring and not really scary, it is not a terribly made film. Just not very interesting.