This Is Hands Down the Most Terrifying PG-13 Horror Movie

For many viewers, the idea of a PG-13 horror movie might seem like an oxymoron. After all, how can you get a truly spooky tale while at the same time holding back on all the gruesomeness, the fear factor, and the gore that horror stories usually entail? But, as the more seasoned viewer is quicker to recognize, there are indeed many great PG-13 horror movies out there, some of which are truly terrifying. And the best part of it is that you can watch them with the kids and delight yourself as they get to experience true chills for the first time in their lives! But while the options are many, ranging frommodern flicks such as Insidious and A Quiet Place to classics like Poltergeist and Arachnophobia, your best bet if you want a true hair-raiser is Gore Verbinski's The Ring.

Originally released in 2002, The Ring might not be the greatest cinematic achievement when it comes to horror filmmaking — which in no way means it's a bad movie. You can be good and still not be the best. All we're saying is that, while Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist set a sky-high bar for kid-friendly horror films and while PG-13 greats such as Alejandro Amenábar's The Othersand M. Night Shyamalan's Signs use the medium to tell stories that play with our most existential fears, The Ring is a more straightforward horror story. However, that doesn't mean it isn't scary as hell. When it comes to putting the fear of God — and televisions — in viewers aged 13 and older, you really can't pick a better film.

Extremely thrilling and atmospheric, The Ring tells the kind of horror tale that doesn't require a lot of blood and guts to scare and scar. It's a ghost story, after all, and one that relies both on showing what we should be afraid of and, on keeping things secret. It's a movie that deals with anticipation and invites us to participate in its creepy rituals. Instead of merely watching the characters perform acts that condemn them to certain doom, we are transformed into part of a story that transcends the screen — some would even say literally.

What Is 'The Ring' About?

A remake of a classic 1998 film directed by Japanese horror master Hideo Nakata, titled Ringu, The Ring offers us a pretty basic premise: a journalist takes on the task of finding out what truly happened to her teenage niece, who died mysteriously in her own home when her heart simply stopped working. Doctors cannot find an explanation as to how something like this could happen to such a young girl, but, talking to Katie's (Amber Tamblyn) friends, Rachel (Naomi Watts) learns about an urban legend that might be connected to this bizarre death: that of a videotape that kills whoever sees it after seven days. Upon getting her hands on the murderous tape (and, of course, watching it), Rachel enlists the help of video expert and former boyfriend Noah (Martin Henderson) to figure out the origins of the recording in the week she has before her certain death. Stakes become higher when Rachel and Noah's young son, Aidan (creepy child extraordinaire David Dorfman), watches the bizarre film.

It is perhaps a bit spoiler-y, but necessary to the point we're trying to make, to remark that there are only five on-screen deaths that take place during the one hour and 55 minutes of The Ring, one of them being the death that sets the story in motion and three of them caused by something other than the tape. The Ring is not a movie that scares its viewers by showing us gruesome images of dead bodies and outlandish killings. Instead, it unnerves us with its race-against-time factor, making us constantly aware of how little time Rachel and Noah have to solve the mystery of the murderous tape. Sure, every now and then, Verbinski gives us a glimpse of Katie's deformed corpse or of the decomposed body of Samara Morgan (Daveigh Chase), the dead psychic child who is behind the killer video, but those are by far the weakest parts of the film. Such scenes almost feel shoehorned into a movie that is much more about creating an atmosphere than it is about shocking images.

'The Ring' Is More About Atmosphere Than Gore

Water slowly seeping through a phone receiver, screws turning in the opposite direction to undo a structure, a broken timecode on a VCR... These are the shots that truly set the tone and scare in The Ring — shots that mark the flow of time while also creating an unsettling vibe that matches the pseudo-avant-garde look of the ominous video made by Samara: A collection of seemingly unrelated images of a woman brushing her hair, a well, a staircase leaning against a wall, and more. Apparently innocuous, these shots leave us constantly on edge, priming us for the jump scares that are rare, but expertly placed in the movie.

They also create an oppressive atmosphere, making us aware of our surroundings to the point where even the most innocent of things look scary. In a particularly remarkable scene, Rachel is standing on her apartment's balcony, looking at the myriad of buildings and windows that surround her. Through each window, she can see a television set tuned to a different station. It's a reminder that danger is everywhere, that Samara, who kills her victims by emerging from TVs, can come from anywhere. However, it is also a reminder of how utterly alone she is in her belief that her niece was killed by a videotape and in her plight to save herself and her son. As much as people are all around her, there is no one by her side.

This suffocating solitude is something that Verbinski borrows from Nakata's original film.It's what makes The Ring not just a scary movie, but also a melancholic one. And, in the end, these two very different auras complement one another: the fear exacerbates the sadness, giving it an extra layer, while the feeling of loneliness makes the ever-present danger all the more terrifying. Samara is alone, and that is why she kills. Rachel, apart from Noah and Aidan, is alone, and that is why she is bound to die without anyone knowing what truly happened to her. As for us in the audience, well...

'The Ring' Invites the Viewers to Participate in Its Horror

Perhaps the most terrifying element of The Ring is the fact that Verbinski shows us, in its entirety, the content of Samara Morgan's murderous video recording. We watch it in full, not framed by anything that might indicate a screen within a screen, participating in the ritual that will eventually lead to death in tandem with the movie's characters. Sure, we don't get the subsequent call announcing that we only have seven days left to live, but that honestly comes as a relief after being forced to sit through a video that is said to have its viewers killed. Watching The Ring is a recipe for spending at least a week looking behind your shoulder, fearing every screen, and waiting for a creepy dead girl to emerge out of a black-and-white well and claim your life. It's not the same as the fear you get from screens out of watching, say, the aforementioned Poltergeist, or the fear you might get from a Ouija board after watching Ouija. It's not the effect of hearing a story that happened to someone else that grabs you when you watch The Ring, it's the anxiety of having done something forbidden. You've seen the tape, now it is your turn to die.

The Ring is one of those rare movies that gain something when you watch it at home instead of in theaters. The experience of viewing Samara's "student film" in the comfort and solitude of your bedroom or living room is much scarier than seeing it in a crowded semi-public space. In the privacy of your home, the sensation of watching a video that you weren't supposed to is intensified, and so is the subsequent terror of what might come next. In our current age of streaming, the only thing that can make the experience any better is if you manage to get your hands on a VHS version of the movie. But if all you've got is digital or DVD, don't fret. Samara isn't picky about who she terrifies.