THE RING TWO

2005

Directed by Hideo Nakata

Starring: Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, David Dorfman, Elizabeth Perkins and Sissy Spacek

111 minutes

Reviewed by Val Frost

Watson Scale (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 3.5

Ah you know, I know there’s stuff out there I should review, but I’m not. So until I get my hands on a copy of KUNG FU HUSTLE, just deal with my divergences please.

The Ring Two…um, what happened in the original THE RING again? Oh yeah, reporter (Watts) finds scary videotape, watches it, her hot ex-husband watches it, her dumbass kids (Dorfman) watch it…and then…something. Oh, the tape is haunted, or possessed and when you watch it you get a phone call telling you “seven days” which means you’re gonna buy the farm if you don’t show the tape to someone else. Nice. Hot ex-husband find this out in time and the creepy little girl who is the ghost on the tape crawls out through the TV and scares the bejebus out of him, killing him (and anyone else who witnesses this) dead on the spot.

SO. Here we are a year or so later. Rachel (said reporter) and Aidan (kid) have moved from Seattle to some small town along the coast to try and escape memories of the past. Yeah right, like that ever works. The videotape has spread and some teen (naturally) bites it and Rachel freaks. The little girl-ghost, AKA Samara, seems to somehow take a shine to Aidan and tries – successfully – to possess him. Turns out all she wants IS HER MOMMY!! Mommy! Mommy why did you try to drown me when I was a wee ‘iddle baby?? MOMMY!!! You get the idea. And so a-possessing she will go.

Now the whole freak-out factor of the original THE RING – and even more so in the ORIGINAL-original Japanese RINGU – was the absolute pee-your-pants scare of the end scene when Samara (Sadako in the RINGU) climbs through the fucking TV set. Holy Christ I didn’t sleep for a week after that! It’s one heck of a nightmarish image and its what made Ringu so freaking successful in Japan. You don’t expect it; it just happens and then you find yourself sitting there in a puddle of your own urine crying for your own mommy! So the challenge of a (American) sequel (there was already a RINGU 2 in Japan and it sucked) is how to scare the audience who already know the basic punch line.

It’s one hard challenge and THE RING TWO doesn’t quite make it. But really, it was batting 1000. Even with Nakata – the Japanese director of RINGU behind the camera, TWO is not quite up to snuff. There is some creep in the movie; one or two images that make you jump up a bit and spill your popcorn, but nothing to match the true horror of the original (either one). Ah, but there is one great line toward the end of the movie. Got a good, laugh and that’s something!