Gore Verbinski's remake of Hideo Nakata's Ringu (a Japanese cult hit that spawned numerous sequels and inspired the slick but flawed FearDotCom) is deliciously implausible and deliriously unsubtle at times, yet it does a satisfying job of creating a world (okay, Seattle) where videotapes kill their viewers within seven days. Naomi Watts (comely and competent here, if light years from her Mulholland Drive tour de force) is Rachel, a rebellious reporter investigating the mysterious deaths of four teenagers, one of whom was her favorite niece. Her ex, a scruffy photographer (Martin Henderson), offers his video expertise, and her precocious son (self-possessed newcomer David Dorfman) starts hearing messages from a dead little girl (none other than Daveigh Chase, the Sparkle Motion kid sister from Donnie Darko).

Matters progress to an abandoned horse farm off Puget Sound, where lone patriarch Brian Cox (one of the finest actors alive) gruffly speaks of a decades-old family tragedy and fidgets with electrical cords in an unsettling way. Derivative, yes, but no more so than other recent scare fare. And Verbinski's visuals are affecting (his rainy mise-en-scène is all mossy greens, like decay, or lime Jujubes); he avoids the tiresome bloody evisceration that every other horror director seems addicted to. This is a haunting, pure and simple, and it's downright scary. (114 minutes) At the Apple Valley, Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Providence Place 16, Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas.