The Ring 2

We went to see The Ring 2 last Friday night. We opted to get out of the house and avoid the horrible "Pope-Deathwatch-Newscasts" all night.

It's a long movie, clocking in at 111 minutes. It's rated PG-13 for violence/terror, disturbing images, thematic elements and some language. Naomi Watts is the lead again. She seemed somewhat hotter this time around. That aside, I think the cast did a fine job. The kid is strangely detached but that's his character, and during the film you see why it's necessary to notice that. Also you should keep your eyes on body temperatures. There are several little clever things going on this time around.

This time around.

You can probably do okay if you saw this without seeing the first Ring because there's really a completely different angle this time. The Ring was essentially a video tape chain letter gone awry. When Rachel severs the line, technically she didn't break the line at all as she didn't watch the video again, she unleashes the spirit of Samara to posses her son Aidan. The rest of the movie is Rachel searching for a way to combat the devil girl, and even meets up with the birth mother, played by Sissy Spacek. I had no idea it was Sissy in that role. She has a freakish nose job and looks hardly human any more.

But I digress...

The Ring 2, like The Ring before it, was a different kind of horror movie. Not a slasher king of horror, but a movie built on suspense. Suspense was well created with "scary music." You did hear little girls shreaking at the screen at parts.

If you want a minor chill from a movie, if you enjoy waiting for something that may ort may not happen, this movie is...

...fine.

It's not bad, but not great. Just fine.

This from IMDB:

Trivia: According to the production notes, there were bizarre incidents on set of life reflecting art. On the seventh day, the production office was discovered to have flooded overnight, the result of a burst water pipe. Water is a strong theme in the film. In response, director Hideo Nakata requested a Japanese purification ceremony be carried out my a Shinto minister, but the strange incidents continued. While on location, a swarm of thousands of bees descended on the prop truck, prompting the immediate evacuation of the department, before the bees left as quick as they arrived. For no apparent reason, a five-gallon water jug burst open in the production office kitchen, one again flooding the same room that had flooded only weeks earlier. One morning on the Universal lot, a set costumer stepped out of the parking garage to discover an antlered buck charging across the asphalt in her direction. Though deer are a regular occurrence in the hills, the similarity to the deer attack in the film is uncanny.