The Ring Two (2005)

'The Ring Two' brings the original director Hideo Katada to create a sequel to the American remake. Unfortunately, despite his clear talents with 'Ringu' and 'Ringu 2' they don't seem to be present in this overdone and tired sequel. Naomi Watts returns as Rachel, a single mother who thought she was done with the cursed videotape created by the deadly spirit known as Samara who now seeks to return to the living world through Rachel's son Aiden. Now, you may be thinking: "What did you expect from a rushed out sequel to an American horror film?" well back in 2005 when J-Horror wasn't completely over-saturated and the film having the original's director at the helm? A lot more than what I got.

To be fair however, I recently sat down and rewatched the film for this review and while it really wasn't the worst thing I've seen, it's overall feeling of disappointment somehow feels worse for me. The film begins the same as the original, with Rachel somehow connected to a teenager's death at Samara's hand but then we start to get sidetracked to the point of confusion. First we have the main story: Aiden being possessed by Samara, then we go to a story about people accusing Rachel of child abuse and the potential of losing Aiden to a foster family, then we have a forced love interest that overall doesn't matter because spoiler alert: the boyfriend that will obviously die obviously dies.

The worst thing about the film is that despite seemingly having a larger budget and higher marketing, it looks and feels so cheap in comparison to Gore Verbinski's remake. I know Katada isn't a strong visual filmmaker, but that older cheaper style really worked for the original J-Horror versions you really just expect more out of a modern film by DreamWorks, who at the time had some of the best looking films in the industry. Really, in all honesty 'The Ring Two' is a really boring retread of what came before and somehow the man who created the thing made it so dull and so bland and generic that I'm just really wanting to know the production history of this flick to figure out what the hell happened.