Ring 2

Sadako returns, sort of, in Hideo Nakata’s tepid, slightly damp sequel

“Even if we get that video on tape, videos don’t kill.”

Despite the Ring movies having been around almost as long as I have, it wasn’t until very recently that I saw one. As good as it was, the film held few surprises – having been parodied, remade, ripped off and referenced countless times in pop culture. But, having never read the books or knew anything about the sequels, I was keen to see what fresh scares the official sequel (not the other, no longer official sequel Spiral) had in store.

The movie takes place a few weeks after the events of Ring. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) has now vanished with her son Yoichi, and is wanted for questioning regarding the mysterious video tape-related deaths of her ex-husband Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada), and her father. Attempting to understand all of this is Mai (Miki Nakatani), Ryuji’s teaching assistant. She teams up with reporter Okazaki (Yurei Yanagi) to uncover more truths behind the rumours of a videotape that kills.

The story has more or less many of the beats you’d expect from this sort of sequel. With the audience now fully on board with the concept of Sadako (Rie Ino), who was dumped in a well thirty years ago by her maybe-father, and her reign of terror as a vengeful ghost, there were still some questions that needed answering. In a lot of ways, Ring 2 works more like an epilogue to the original film, existing mostly to tie up loose ends than it is a new horror film.  

Despite these being still my only forays into the genre I will confidently say nonetheless that this instalment is by far and away the least frightening in the franchise. I say this because, short of just one film being straight up slapstick comedy, there mathematically can’t be any fewer scares in the other chapter than this one. Ring 2 presents itself largely as a mystery, much like the first one, but unlike Ring which saw intense and frightening sequences throughout to add to the unknown (with a fresh and concept backing it), Ring 2 simply doddles about with psychic experiments and facial reconstructions with little else happening.

It’s a lot like the lesser works of Stephen King in that regard, with conversations about nothing and random psychic children in place of actual scary scenes. Ring 2 is perfectly fine, and features some solid performances and a halfway decent plot, but there isn’t much more to it. I’ve mentioned before about how the first one was a victim of its own popularity, but even with every moment diluted due to pop culture oversaturation, you could always tell what it was going for and appreciate it.

There was never a doubt that Ring was going to continue, but there’s an uncertainty about where the story would go from here. The final scene suggests a turning point in the story, and one very few horror films have actually talked about. The people who are killed due to a curse – they surely have unfinished business too? Rage at the people who made them watch the video. There could (and should) be hundreds of furious ghosts, all lashing out at people, killing them and ultimately turning them into vengeful spirits too. I doubt that’s the direction the franchise is going, especially considering I understand they’ve taken the Halloween approach to sequels, with different continuities flying about all over the place. Besides, no one wants to see the ghost of Kanae Sawaguchi fight Ju-On’s Kyako.

Verdict: A decent plot and recurring characters do nothing to help Ring 2’s lack of any scares.

Overall entertainment: 5/10
Violence: 2/10
Sex: 0/10
Brightness: Like a billion/10. This has to be the most lit horror movie I’ve ever seen
Frightened acting: 3/10
Grimmest story beat: Knowing that Sadako grew to adulthood in the well.
Sadako’s father: So he’s like a Cthulhu or something? Does this ever get expanded on?

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Ring 2 (1999)
Also known as: リング2, Ringu 2
Japanese

Director: Hideo Nakata
Writers: Hiroshi Takahashi, Koji Suzuki

CAST

Miki Nakatani – Mai Takano
Rikiya Otaka – Yoichi Asakawa
Nanako Matsushima – Reiko Asakawa
Yoichi Numata – Takashi Yamamura
Rie Ino – Sadako Yamamura
Mebuki Tsuchida – young Sadako Yamamura
Kyoko Fukada – Kanae Sawaguchi
Yūrei Yanagi – Okazaki
Hitomi Satō – Masami Kurahashi
Hiroyuki Sanada – Ryuji Takayama
Fumiyo Kohinata – Ishi Kawajiri
Kenjirō Ishimaru – Detective Keiji Omuta
Masako – Shizuko Yamamura