 "Photo: Dreamworks Pictures")
 "Photo: Dreamworks Pictures")
3 Stars The Ring 2 Dir. by Hideo Nakata Dreamworks
The danger of sequels in the horror genre is that there is always the possibility it will seem to be mere repetition of the themes and twists of the original, making the follow-up film seem recycled. In The Ring 2, there are obvious attempts to avoid this pitfall, but unfortunately, the results are merely mixed.
The movie opens quite similarly to the original, with two high school students hanging around an undistinguishable house, with a mysterious, unlabeled video tape waiting to be watched. The tape gets played, and of course, something horrible happens. While this might just have been the writer's attempt to reengage the story of the original film, it feels like a watered-down version of The Ring's haunting opening sequence.
What's missing from The Ring 2 is the element of mystery and feelings of true suspense. In the original film, the images that appeared on the videotape were pieces to a puzzle that, if the main character Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) could not fit together, would kill her in seven days. The combination of the ticking clock and the intriguingly complex mystery of the videotape made for a chilling, engaging, and suspenseful film.
In The Ring 2, Rachel and her still extremely creepy son Aiden (David Dorfman) are back in a new town, trying to escape what has happened. Before you can say "seven days," that evil videotape has found its way into the new town and quickly starts wreaking havoc. The danger for the filmmakers here would have been to let the videotape itself be the basis of the story, as it was in the original. The Ring 2 wisely decides to step away from the tape and move forward with the story of Samara, the girl whose story is behind it all. Truth be told, it is far better to go with this new story then to try and recycle the first film.
Samara begins to merge into Rachel's son, and Rachel must find a way to stop her. The problem with this setup is that there does not seem to be any sense of time-is-running-out (no "seven days" countdown in this film).
Also gone is the complicated mystery that captured the audience's minds in the first film. While attempts are made to set up another puzzle (when a sleeping Aiden grabs Rachel's arm, letting her see images that help her discover new truths about Samara), these new images are not as creepily peculiar and therefore feel anticlimactic.
That's not to say there are not great moments in this film. Sissy Spacek channels her Carrie-esque creepiness in a quick role as a mental patient with a connection to Samara. There's a hauntingly surreal scene in which Aiden begins showing signs of hypothermia, despite being indoors. Also tremendously effective is a chase sequence up the all-too-famous well, which ends with a great one-liner. Of course there is also my personal favorite, a sequence where Bill Lumbergh himself (Gary Cole of Office Space) makes a cameo as the realtor auctioning off Samara's old residence. He adds humor and even gives our heroine a good scare.
The Ring 2 is not a bad movie. It's just unquestionably inferior to its predecessor (though it is far better than the Japanese sequel to Ringu).
Although there are plenty of haunting scenes and eerie music to go around, there just feels a lack of the originality, mystery, and anticipation that pierced through in the original. If there is The Ring 3, audiences can only hope that the writers can find a way to bring a little more mystery into the fold and get the anticipation and suspense of the first time around.
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