The Ring 2...Making Up the Rules As They Go

2002's THE RING "5" suffered from a common syndrome in Hollywood: You can't judge a book by its cover syndrome. This syndrome occurs when a movie's director and cinematographer have an over active imagination who care more about impressing the audience visually instead of caring about important things such as the screenplay. In my movie fantasy world Hollywood would use special effects to compliment the screenplay. In today's Hollywood, and most likely in the future, it's the other way around. While viewing THE RING, it looked great. The high production value resulted in several memorable scenes, but unfortunately those scenes amounted to a confusing plot that involved a haunted videotape. Why the video tape was made, who made the videotape, and did they know it was haunted was never clear to me.

In THE RING 2, the video tape is back. Do people still use VCRs? This movie is a mess. In the first RING the rules are as follows: if you watch the videotape you'll die 7 days later. The "curse" can be lifted if you have someone else watch the videotape. If this happens the "curse" is lifted from you and moves on to the person who watched the videotape after you. Ridiculous concept, but easy to understand. In R1 the two protagonists are saved by doing this. Blockbuster's late fees never looked so good! R2 forgets the rules established in R1 because the "curse" or "ghost" is looking for payback from the two protagonists from R1. The screenplay didn't explain this which really bugged the hell out of me. A second rule that isn't followed from R1 is the use of televisions as the "portal" that the ghost uses to travel from "ghost-world" to the human world. In R2 it is implied that digital cameras can be used as a portal. What will be used in R3...A microwave? In R4...An alarm clock? Even the worst horror movies have rules that are followed from sequel to painful sequel. Take the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise, no matter what gruesome end falls upon Jason...You know he's not dead. His head could be chopped off, he could be struck by lightning, or run over with a hotel van...It simply doesn't matter, Jason is alive...Its a rule and the movie doesn't break the rule.

As the film continues to make up rules the audience is witness to every stock horror trick in the history of horror film making to let you know that you should be scared. Flickering light bulbs, lots of spider webs, eerie music, and the occational ghostly whisper of the protagonist's name are all signs of an uninventive script and a characteristic of a desperate film maker at their wit's end. The "ghostly whisper" device always brings up a couple of questions: Did the character hear the voice? Did I hear the voice or is it someone snoring behind me? It doesn't matter. Once the audience starts asking these type of questions the film has lost all credibility and has become quite lame. R2 quickly reaches this point in it's first 20 minutes.

I didn't like R2. Sometimes a bad movie is so bad that it becomes good. Viewers can be entertained by making fun of the many ways the movie fails. But sometimes a movie is so bad...it's just plain bad. R2 receives a "1".