The Ring Two

Much of The Ring Two could have worked better if the makers hadn’t decided to tie themselves so the characters of the original.  Fundamentally, Rachel Keller and her son Aidan (Naomi Watts and David Dorfman) do not have a reason to be in this movie.  There’s definitely room to expand Samara’s (Kelly Stables this time, with Daveigh Chase in archive footage) backstory.  Obviously, if the villain of your movie is an evil child, and you establish that she’s adopted, there are questions to be answered about just where she came from.

The idea of “Rings” of risk-takers is also a good one.  Ryan Merriman returns for the first scene to die and end that storyline.  However, they’re horribly underused.  As far as I can tell their contribution to the plot is simply the creation of a large number of copies of Samara’s tape.  This, somehow, makes her more powerful.  They literally had a convenient source of unlimited new characters lined up, all aware of Samara, some under threat by her and others already free, and they threw it away.

Samara becoming more powerful might work, if she simply used her established abilities on a larger scale.  However, “more power” simply seems to mean “forget any established rules,” and Samara begins to get more powers as the plot requires.  Rachel and Aidan come under fire from everything from levitating water to angry deer, as Samara attempts to possess Aidan, because that’s a thing she can do now, despite the fact that he cast off her influence at the end of the last film.

The implication seems to be that Samara wants a mother, but why she became obsessed with Rachel out of all the mothers of her long line of victims I don’t know.  Why she couldn’t have done this before gaining an arbitrarily increased amount of power, I also don’t know.  It’s just stuff happens, so be afraid, audience.

I opened the movie expecting to complain about the performances.  The first few scenes are delivered in the kind of dull, deadpan, depressed monotone that I periodically complain about in horror films.  However, this is gone within a few scenes, and most of the acting wasn’t good or bad enough to be noticed.

The special effects are at about that same level.  They’re competent enough for their time to avoid complaints, but not really good enough to merit much else.  I can’t recall going “wow, that’s a good effect!” at any point.

So, we have a series of events.  A series of events I kinda-sorta regret watching, but not enough to spend any more time worrying about.  It’s “a movie,” and that’s all I can say.