After unwittingly exposing herself and her loved ones to a mysterious videotape that kills viewers precisely seven days after watching it, an investigative reporter (Naomi Watts) has only a week to track down its origins and, hopefully, avert death. This occasionally frightening remake of a popular Japanese thriller begins, naturally, on a dark and stormy night and, from there, touches on every horror movie cliché in the book: a pair of teenaged girls home alone, a creepy little boy with paranormal abilities, the foreboding ring of a telephone, a deserted cabin in the woods, and the spooky halls of an ancient mental institution. And so on, ad nauseum, all the way through three endings, one of which rips off the master of psychological horror, Alfred Hitchcock himself.

Grade: C-

Kinsey Scale: 0 (As with most mainstream horror flicks, this one takes place in an exclusively heterosexual universe).