Ring 2

[Henrik Sylow]

How J-Horror could benifit from being made in Hollywood is quiet silly, as
then it wouldn't be J-Horror anymore. Verbinski's "The Ring" clearly
demonstrated how different the two styles are, but those who've seen
Nakata's "The Ring 2" who honestly never dare to say something like that. If
anything, "The Ring 2" shows how horrible primitive Hollywood horror is
versus J-Horror.

 

First of all, Nakata is not visible anywhere in "The Ring 2". Perhaps in
hindsight during one or two sequences, but in general the entire style of
the film is Beristain. Its classic Hollywood close up, point of view,
cinematography, that feels very much like Nolan's "Insomnia", and the horror
is 50% of the time "jack in the box" buh moments, or total compositions
where something is "creepring" up on Rachel without her knowing it, like
when she is in Morgas cellar and the lightbulbs one by one fade out. 

 

The horror is simply on the same level as the teenage-horrorfilms like "I
know what you screamed at last summer", and Kruger (the author) did also
write "Scream 3". And on top of that, it has the most stupid horror sequence
I've seen in a horrorfilm yet: CGI killer possessed deers.

 

The premise of the film is based on Krugers previous shortfilm "Rings",
where a highschool kid, Jake, gets his hands on the ring-tape and make a
group with some friends, so they all can watch it and then pass on the curse
to eachother, but they turn the back on him and here "The Ring 2" concludes
the cliffhanger ending, as Jake has gotten some bimbo to come over and watch
the tape, so that she can get the curse, but she is too afraid and Samara
comes after Jake. And Rachel just happends to have escaped into the same
town and be editor on the local newspaper and overhear the police talk about
the case.

 

As a whole, the plot is very silly, even works against the logic of "The
Ring" and its own actions. Suddenly Samara is adopted, because her mother
wanted to kill her, as she was possessed by an evil spirit, who just wanted
a mother who loved her, and now that spirit is Samara and possesses Aidan
and has supernaturel powers like mind control. And she can also posses an
entire herd of deers, who then attack the car with Aidan and Rachel. About
it working against its own logic, Aidan discovers that Samara cannot hear
you when you sleep, as she is dead and therefor doesn't sleep, but when he
and Rachel are discussing how to defeat her in a dream, Aidan suddenly says,
"Quiet, she can hear us." It really feels like The Ring meets Carrie meets
the Exorcist meets Nightmare on Elm Street meets Scream.

 

I really fear how Salles remake of "Dark Water" turns out.

 

Henrik

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