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Sponsored by 710 BookStore - - - http://www.seventen.com/'Ring' sequel sleepy, scare-free
Andy Horonzy
Pulse critic
'The Ring Two'
Starring: Naomi Watts, David Dorfman, Kelly Stables
Directed by: Hideo Nakata
Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes
Rated PG-13
1 gus heads out of 4
Maybe it was all a trick. Maybe "The Ring,"2002's Hollywood remake of the Japanese smash "Ringu," wasn't supposed to be a horror movie. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be genuinely creepy and unsettling and inspire a cult following eager for another installment. Maybe it was all an accident.
Because if that's true, it might help explain why "The Ring Two" isn't just scareless but - spoiler alert - boring. And loaded with implied parenting advice. And crammed with clichéd "surprises" and laughter-friendly lines like "I'm not your f#$%ing mommy!" And let's not even mention the lame nods to "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist." For if not an accident, it sure was one damn good marketing campaign.
But, well-intentioned or not, the sequel still has to be analyzed. "The Ring Two" begins with Naomi Watts back as Rachel Keller, single mother to Aidan (David Dorfman), a dour child who just can't bring himself to call her mommy. Rachel seems like she's happy, but something about her having to give up a big-time reporting gig in Seattle to relocate to tiny Astoria, Ore., doesn't exactly scream satisfied.
Why the move? Well, when a videotape resembling the opening credits of "Seven" starts killing everyone who watches it, you want to get outta Dodge on the double. Especially when said tape stars a hygiene-deficient ghost girl, Samara (Kelly Stables), whose mother may or may not have drowned her in a well.
Too bad this is a horror flick, and that means anywhere you run, evil will inevitably follow. And when the tape turns up in supposedly safe Astoria, where Rachel has taken a job at the local paper, it doesn't come as a shock. Of course, even if it did, it would be about the biggest shock "The Ring Two" delivers.
Samara, still hot on Rachel and Aidan's trail, eventually manages to exhume herself from the tape and take over Aidan's body. Suddenly calling Rachel mommy doesn't seem like such a stretch for Aidan. The bruises that her presence leaves on poor Aidan's body, though, land Rachel on his doctors' s-list. Call it a celluloid cry to end child abuse.
Samara's possession of Aidan, which represents the bulk of the film, is where "The Ring Two's" paper-thin plot begins to unravel. When done well, as in "The Exorcist," demonic possession can be scary as hell. But when the fright feels forced, as it does here, it's almost, well, funny. And humor is not something Japanese director Hideo Nakata (he directed both "Ringu" and its sequel) was supposed to bring to this series.
Where's the J-horror darkness? The trademark grit and no-frills shocks? Were the confines of a burgeoning franchise too tight to allow for the gloss-free visuals that made the Japanese original - not to mention its American remake - so unique? Nakata does manage one or two genuine scares, but by the time Samara spiderwalks up a grime-stained well near the end of the film, it's too little, too late.
Watts, as in the original, brings a fire to the role of Rachel no actress working today would likely rival. Stables, nearly unrecognizable as Samara, somehow percolates with psychological trauma despite layers of discolored makeup. But Dorman, who has almost as much screen time as Watts, is as unsympathetic a child in danger as the screen has seen (too bad Haley Joel Osment had to grow up; he would have been perfect).
Still, Dorman's not alone in his awkwardness. The first "Ring" translated so well because it remained faithful to its source material - all mood and meticulous movements. Its sequel tries to step out on its own only to stumble in its opening sequence (featuring an unsettling cameo by "Everwood's" Emily VanCamp). And it's a long way - 1 hour, 51 minutes to be exact - to the bottom.
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