THERE is nothing more likely to stoke up fear and paranoia in a film than an urban legend.

Mad Jason on the prowl in a ski mask in Friday 13th, the malevolent old crone in Blair Witch or even Dracula himself have all had been steeped in enough creepy reality to be believably frightening.

The premise of the old wives' tale in The Ring (15) is that there is a killer video tape that leaves its viewers scared to death, their traumatised faces frozen in a mask of terror within a week.

The VHS in question is not, as it turns out, a Gareth Gates video compilation but the stuff of a real legend in Japan.

It was made into a bowel-looseningly chilling low-budget psychological horror that achieved cult status as soon as it was released in Japan.

This kind of success registers dollar signs in the eyes of Hollywood producers and now Gore Verbinski has used it as a template for a glossy remake.

There is something about the mystical Orient that makes you believe there could quite easily be a maelevolent spirit lodged within a video tape but modern day Chicago?

Reporter Naomi Watts discovers unconfirmed reports of a videotape which supposedly kills the viewer exactly seven days after they watch it.

As a woman who deals in facts not hearsay, she dismisses the stories as paranoia and rumour-mongering.

But her viewpoint is altered when her teenage niece dies exactly one week after seeing the mysterious tape.

Viewing the tape's contents for herself, Watts becomes aware of strange forces about and within her.

It quickly dawns that she now has a week to discover what supernatural force lies within the tape and how to stop it.

She teams up with her photographer ex-lover Martin Henderson and supernaturally gifted young son David Dorfman to save herself from an early grave.

Although not nearly as creepy or unsettling as the original, The Ring successfully magics an atmosphere of choking tension and impending doom as Watts races against time to decipher the tape's cryptic meaning.

The contents of the tape are suitably unsettling, gradually leaching into reality as Watts begins to understand what she must do to beat the seven-day deadline.

Verbinski remains faithful to the Japanese source film, tinkering slightly with the order of events and referencing seminal horror movies such as The Shining with his choice of shots. The 15 rating means much of the horror is suggested rather than shown, but this only adds to the tension.

Watts is a feisty and sympathetic heroine and she gels effectively with hunk Henderson, but it is youngster Dorfman who commands attention as the little boy who communicates with the dead. He may be no Hayley Joel Osment but he is adept at pulling morbidly frightening faces.

Like all good horror films this has a twist in the end, it might not be in The Sixth Sense's league but it is still a corker.