As “The Ring Two” (2005) opens, high school senior Ryan Merriman tries to pass the “You’ll die in one week” curse to classmate Emily VanCamp by making her watch “The Ring’s” VHS tape of Samara climbing out of a well. She’s the ideal “dumb” and “unattractive” coed to sacrifice. Except VanCamp of course has flawless skin, hair, makeup and clothes.
She’s a plain wallflower only in the skewed world of cinema. This franchise has its roots in J-horror, but those roots are clipped here. Now we’re in an edgeless Hollywood production that would rather put a pretty girl in the opening sequence than create a believable reality.
Too slick to be scary
That vibe continues for the full 110 minutes (130 if you watch the unrated cut, which is as tame as the PG-13 version). Newspaper reporter Rachel (Naomi Watts, “Goodnight Mommy”) has moved from Seattle to a small town (still in Washington, I think), but soggy ghost girl Samara (Kelly Stables) has followed her.
“The Ring Two” (2005)
Director: Hideo Nakata
Writer: Ehren Kruger
Stars: Naomi Watts, David Dorfman, Simon Baker
Rachel destroys the tape, and luckily YouTube launched only one month before this and was not yet widely used, so she barely averts the video going viral. But it doesn’t matter, because those carefully explained rules from “The Ring” no longer apply now that we need a sequel … I mean, now that Samara is, um, particularly angry … or something.
Rachel tries to help her gradually possessed son Aidan (David Dorfman). But she’s victimized by every cliché — erm, tactic – in the ghost-monster-haunting playbook. The authorities assume she is beating her son when they see handprints on his back.
Well, I should give Samara some originality points for springing a herd of evil CGI deer on Rachel’s car. Also mildly interesting: “The Ring Two” inverts “A Nightmare on Elm Street” by making dreams into a safe space.
More about Samara
Writer Ehren Kruger (“Top Gun: Maverick”) returns to pound out an inferior sequel. The “mystery” is barely there, although when a scrapbook prompts Rachel to think about Samara’s mother, it leads to a padded-cell scene with Watts and Sissy Spacek. So “The Ring Two” bizarrely includes a scene between an Oscar nominee and an Oscar winner.
This is a typical entry from the Blatant CGI era. CGI is more smoothly integrated into good films now, but in the Aughts the technique was primitive and filmmakers overused it. This bad combination sucks the scares out of the room.
Director Hideo Nakata directed the first two Japanese “Ringu” films, but he can’t translate the mood. For some reason, the fatalism that wrapped “The Ring” like a blanket is a soggy towel here. That’s appropriate, I suppose, since Aidan drops 5 degrees below normal body temperature.
“Ring” mythology nerds (if they exist) might enjoy uncovering details of Samara’s tragedy. As we learn more reasons to feel bad for her, we simultaneously dislike her for possessing Aidan. So we’re on the heroine’s side, but I can’t get behind Rachel’s aggressive “I’m not your f***ing mother” in the not-rated version. Samara was drowned in a well by her own mother; the tragedy is too thick to be spouting one-liners.
“The Ring Two” is a 21st century ghost-monster story, so it purposely aims to leave a viewer bereft. But it goes too far – or not far enough, depending on how you look at it. It goes back to the well one too many times.