The Ring Two

The Ring Two (Director: Hideo Nakata)

The Japanese Nakata brought to the world the franchise's first entry, Ringu, American-made in 2002 into the phenomenon The Ring by Gore Verbinski. Nakata also did Ringu 2, which has a different storyline from this sequel. Once again, script is from Ehren Kruger based on a series of novels from Koji Suzuki and also screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi's many adaptations in Japan.

Another disappointment. The horror genre has taken a serious critical licking this year, while at the same time reaping lots of money. This film will continue the trend, on a grand scale. It's not that the movie is filmed terribly, it's just not tremendously scary. Nakata, much like The Grudge's Takashi Shimizu, gets his first attempt at an American box office smash, which he will get, but at the cost of losing the Japanese style. Are there moments of creepiness? In 2 hours of film, they can be counted on one hand.

In general, the horror sequel is immediately handicapped by the surprise of the original. In the first Ring (and obviously, Ringu) the scares came from distorted faces in pictures and distorted, ghastly faces of people who have died, then there's the recent Japanese staple of creepy video and static, with villains that have a cut-frame, sped-up way of walking or crawling that is disarming. Well, it almost seems like the filmmakers are too conscious of what worked last time, and while they can be given points for trying not to rehash the original, they lose something in the next incarnation.

Here, the video tape of the original has resurfaced, and someone has died, and reporter Rachel (Naomi Watts) goes to check it out to see if it is indeed the tape. Something happens, and the nasty villain Samara (archival footage from the original played by Daveigh Chase) has sort of a thing about stalking Rachel's son Aidan (David Dorfman), and ultimately possesses him. Once again, Samara's checkered history has to be researched in order to conquer evil.

As scary as that may sound, there's not much the movie does after that. It's pretty darn straightforward, with a lot of stuff that is just plain nonsense. And whatever happened to sound? Sound is one of the best friends horror movies have, and there's nothing here. The visuals, while appealing, and Nakata often uses the frame expertly, just aren't enough to float the picture. The movie, in sum, spends entirely too much time on research when we want to be horrified and unnerved. You might find yourself yawning.