The Ring Two

Don’t say that I wasn’t fair when I viewed “The Ring Two”. I re-watched the first film, I even sat down and watched “Rings”, the short that ties both pictures together. It’s an utter disappointment, a film that is never frightening, contains little suspense and features a story that’s largely nonsensical.

When Rachel (Naomi Watts) discovers that teenagers are circulating Samara Morgan’s cursed videotape, she realizes that the nightmare isn’t over. It becomes apparent that Samara is now fascinated with Rachel’s son, Aidan (David Dorfman)

Cut out the first 10 minutes and you wouldn’t even know that this was a sequel to “The Ring”. The cursed VHS tape is only briefly mentioned. For the rest of the picture we follow that old horror cliché of “I need to be reborn by possessing someone’s body”. I applaud the film for trying to be different. It’s much better than having Rachel discover say… another hidden tape, but this story doesn’t feel like a logical follow-up at all. All of the rules are completely different, for one. We learn that Samara has a weakness, that she didn’t come from supernatural means (I guess the line "My wife wasn't supposed to have a child" was a trick? It makes no sense), we learn why the tapes can do what they do and other things no one was interested in learning.

I couldn't believe it. Even the grossly mutilated bodies that Samara leaves in her wake don’t look very good. At times it imitates the original but makes strange decisions that annihilate any potential for scares that could’ve been there. Believe me, phoney-looking CGI deer are not nearly as disturbing as horses spontaneously committing suicide. The characters’ actions don’t make any sense and neither does the story. It’s such an apocalyptically bad and out of place follow-up I wonder if the script didn’t start off as a completely different picture that was tweaked to be “The Ring Two”.

It’s all of these dreadful things and more. At an hour and 49 minutes, the picture drags for what feels like an eternity. It doesn’t help that the key plot points are so easy to guess you’ll be bored out of your skull. There are only 2 good scenes in the entire film, the rest is a series of bad decisions from director Hideo Nakata. At a generous star apiece, that means “The Ring Two” earns itself a measly 2/10. It’s absolutely dreadful. I obtained the film in a two-pack with the first “Ring”. It would take up absolutely no space on my shelf to keep but I’m never seeing this again and I never want to be tempted to so I’m getting rid of the disc. (Extended version on DVD, February 18, 2017)