2008 Woodie Awards
The Ring Two Hits Theaters
Jonathan Stone
Issue date: 3/30/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment
- Page 1 of 1
The Ring, the movie that coined the term "seven days", had a little girl coming through television sets, and showed distorted scared-to-death faces is back with its sequel-The Ring 2.
The Ring 2 picked up right where the first one ended. The plot had little development because almost everything was taken directly out of the original. Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) moves to a small-town with her son Aidan (David Dorfman) to get away from what had happened to them in The Ring. Accepting a job as a local journalist, Rachel goes to investigate a murder that was described over a police transmitter. It was explained as a murder with the victim's girlfriend still in the basement...and there was something about the victim's face. At the scene of the crime, Rachel looks at the victim, and discovers that it is Samara's tape that caused this. She finds the tape in the house, and burns it.
All of that was thrown out at the crowd within the first ten minutes of the movie. The rest of the movie followed with similar scares that were in the first one. The plot was based around the fact that since Rachel destroyed Samara's tape, Samara needed to come back to life by manifesting in Aidan's body. From there on, the movie is very predictable until the ending. Although it was predictable, there were scary scenes, including one with deer, and a few others involving Aidan becoming Samara. Without spoiling the ending, Rachel saves the day by protecting Aidan. How? Let's keep it at this: it was worth the price of admission just for the last 10 minutes of the movie, and to hear first-hand what will become a classic line.
There are a few things about this movie that make it different from other horror/suspense movies that have been released over the past year. For beginners, there were a lot of special effects involving water, deer, and the burning tree. Other movies of the same genre, including White Noise, Saw, and Hide and Seek, did not use special effects at all, except for the ghosts in White Noise. The use of imagery as a scare tactic also made this movie stand out. Images from the first movie, mainly the image of the burning tree and images from Samara's videotape, were used very well in order to get the crowd ready for a scare.
One of the best things the producers did was hiding the scenes in the promos for the movie. The promos allowed everyone to know that Samara was coming out of the well, water was going to be falling from the ceiling in a bathroom, and that Samara wanted to be Aidan. It was a very nice touch to show the cameo with Sissy Spacek playing Evelyn, Samara's birth mother, because it was not actually in the movie, and was just a spin off of her character. It was a great way to hype the movie, and keep the best scenes hidden.
Overall, The Ring 2 delivers, compounding everyone's fascination with the character of Samara with their fear of the living dead. Most people who enjoyed the original will enjoy the sequel, even though tradition stands true for this set: the sequel is never better than the original.
The Ring 2 picked up right where the first one ended. The plot had little development because almost everything was taken directly out of the original. Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) moves to a small-town with her son Aidan (David Dorfman) to get away from what had happened to them in The Ring. Accepting a job as a local journalist, Rachel goes to investigate a murder that was described over a police transmitter. It was explained as a murder with the victim's girlfriend still in the basement...and there was something about the victim's face. At the scene of the crime, Rachel looks at the victim, and discovers that it is Samara's tape that caused this. She finds the tape in the house, and burns it.
All of that was thrown out at the crowd within the first ten minutes of the movie. The rest of the movie followed with similar scares that were in the first one. The plot was based around the fact that since Rachel destroyed Samara's tape, Samara needed to come back to life by manifesting in Aidan's body. From there on, the movie is very predictable until the ending. Although it was predictable, there were scary scenes, including one with deer, and a few others involving Aidan becoming Samara. Without spoiling the ending, Rachel saves the day by protecting Aidan. How? Let's keep it at this: it was worth the price of admission just for the last 10 minutes of the movie, and to hear first-hand what will become a classic line.
There are a few things about this movie that make it different from other horror/suspense movies that have been released over the past year. For beginners, there were a lot of special effects involving water, deer, and the burning tree. Other movies of the same genre, including White Noise, Saw, and Hide and Seek, did not use special effects at all, except for the ghosts in White Noise. The use of imagery as a scare tactic also made this movie stand out. Images from the first movie, mainly the image of the burning tree and images from Samara's videotape, were used very well in order to get the crowd ready for a scare.
One of the best things the producers did was hiding the scenes in the promos for the movie. The promos allowed everyone to know that Samara was coming out of the well, water was going to be falling from the ceiling in a bathroom, and that Samara wanted to be Aidan. It was a very nice touch to show the cameo with Sissy Spacek playing Evelyn, Samara's birth mother, because it was not actually in the movie, and was just a spin off of her character. It was a great way to hype the movie, and keep the best scenes hidden.
Overall, The Ring 2 delivers, compounding everyone's fascination with the character of Samara with their fear of the living dead. Most people who enjoyed the original will enjoy the sequel, even though tradition stands true for this set: the sequel is never better than the original.