(2005) **
I knew this wasn't very good, but having ended my run last year with The Ring, I couldn't resist the symmetry.
The list of why this wasn't very good is long and bountiful, but the main thing missing was the tone. The Ring had a taut, engaging dread about it every single minute. And while I recognized the characters and the motifs, this had the ambient feel of something on Lifetime, probably something you only watched because a friend of yours played a cop in one scene.
It was boring! In all the post-release disappointment, no one mentioned that to me. There's far too much exposition and set-up, and the scares that finally kick in are flat and overplayed. They mostly amount to Aiden watching water, water leaking from this place or that place, and appliance failure. Nothing ever builds, no sense of increasing stakes is ever sought.
Where were the distorted face pictures? The people going slowly crazy? Where was the relentless encroaching doom? The videotape storyline (admirably kept alive in the between-movies promotional hoo-ha) gets bumped as quickly as possible for a possession plot. I don't think possession stories are intrinsically interesting. The Exorcist certainly is interesting (and a great deal else besides), but you need to have a hook to make it go. When Samara possesses Aiden, all it does is make her boring. Instead of a week-long death watch, she'll make you stick a hypo in your neck and kill yourself. It's like a one-boy Village of the Damned.
Naomi manages to fix everything and then promises her son that Samara's never coming back. I'd have thought that a foolish, empty promise until I realized the movie's such crap they probably won't make a sequel, which means she's right.
Ach, it's painful seeing our Patron Saint of Scaring the Pants Off Us lending her presence to this turkey. I, for one, am going to pretend this movie just didn't happen.
6 comments:
I warned you, I warned you! I told you not to watch Ring Two. Although The Ring remains, in my opinion, one of the best, most effective horror films of all time, Ring Two, sadly, takes a little away from The Ring, just a smidge.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that you were much too generous to this piece of dreck. I think 1 star would've been sufficient.
Now now, that's the disappointment talking. To lose even a smidge of The Ring's potency is criminal, sure, but a slow, ineffective movie isn't the same as Xtro 2, The Stuff, or that god-awful rockabilly killer from Slumber Party Massacre II. I have to hold the one-stars in reserve for those.
I'm with JPX on this one. I give Ring 2 the one star simply because it was so uninspired and mediocre that actually made me like the original less. It may not be fair (because there are certainly worse horror flicks out there - Halloween Resurrection) but I don't have to be fair.
I decided that I will never watch Ring Two again. Over time I'll forget about it and I'll be able to enjoy The Ring unadulterated
I suspect our difference of opinion is down to you guys seeing this opening weekend all full of hope, and me seeing it months later full of knowledge. Knowledge of suckage. If the Ring mythos can survive all the ill-conceived goings-on in the Japanese Ringu movies, it can certainly endure this.
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