The Ring 2

Naomi Watts and David Dorfman in The Ring 2.

Herald rating: * * 

As an easily scared horror flick watcher I came through the experience of watching this sequel to the surprisingly successful indie horror The Ring, rather well. The same can't be said for the young woman in front of me, who in high-pitched screams announced she was certainly feeling the fear. Fortunately for the rest of us, those scary moments were few and far between.

The Ring was based on Ringu, a Japanese cult film directed and written by Hideo Nakata who was lured to Hollywood to direct The Ring 2, his American debut. Scary rather than horrifying, The Ring 2 answers some of the mysteries of its predecessor, but becomes less intriguing and creepy as a story.

Best to see The Ring before the sequel. It's not a must, but the original is better, and The Ring 2 attempts to move the story forward rather than repeat it.

Naomi Watts is back, along with her son Aidan (Dorfman), as investigative reporter Rachel Keller.

In The Ring, Keller investigated the deaths of a group of teenagers who died within seven days of watching a mysterious two-minute video. Keller had to desperately solve the mystery of the video to save her son's life after he also took a peek at the video. She discovered it featured the ghost of a young girl named Samara who had been killed by her mother. Keller saved her son and destroyed the video, and to recover from the nightmare they moved to the small, quiet coastal town of Astoria, Oregon.

But Samara has become rather fond of Aidan, and in The Ring 2 she follows them to their new home with plans to do more than just cause terror and death. The Ring 2 suffers from trying too hard to be unpredictable. There are too many false endings, which are really easy to spot, and by the time you get to the big finale it has lost its impact. 

CAST: Naomi Watts, Daveigh Chase, David Dorfman, Simon Baker, Sissy Spacek
DIRECTOR: Hideo Nakata
RUNNING TIME: 111 Minutes
RATING: R13 - Contains Violence & Horror Scenes
SCREENING: Village, Hoyts and Berkeley Cinemas.