'The Ring Two': Eerie scares overshadow plot holes

By BOB LONGINO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The Ring Two" is one of those rare Hollywood sequels — a second chapter that holds it own against the ultra successful first, which earned nearly $250 million worldwide.

Like the American-made original, "Two" is creepy with a solid, goosebump-making musical score, more than enough visual frights and a rattled lead character played by the more than capable Naomi Watts.

DreamWorks Pictures

'The Ring Two'

B-

The verdict: Luckily for fans, the good acting and the eerie scares overshadow the film's multiple plot holes.

Director: Hideo Nakata
Starring: Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, David Dorfman, Sissy Spacek
Run time: 111 minutes
Release date: March 18, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for violence/terror, disturbing images, thematic elements and some language
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But this time the tale is a might different. There's not too much made of the sinister videotape (yes, if characters watch it, chances are they'll die). Instead, front and center is the hideous ghost girl, the stringy-haired brat who crawls out of a dingy well and gets you if you don't watch out. She seems free now to crawl out at will.

Diehard fans of the Japanese original and its sequel likely won't be impressed. But they will appreciate that Hideo Nakata, the horror tale's original director has tackled this American sequel to director Gore Verbinski's 2002 Hollywood remake.

Nakata brings to the film a sense of pure cinematic dread with a few impressive camera angles and the willingness to be patient, allowing scenes to unfold slowly and quietly.

There are plenty of plot holes and miscues (the police are apparently so far behind in gathering facts they hardly ever show up). But the movie's problems are frequently overshadowed by its sheer unending eeriness.

"Two" opens six months after reporter Rachel Keller (Watts) and her young son Aidan (David Dorfman) have fled Seattle and the horrors of the mysterious videotape for small-town Astoria, Ore. She's taken a job at the local newspaper.

But running from "The Ring" is not an option. Astoria high schoolers, it seems, have stumbled upon the tape and life becomes Edvard Munch's "Scream" all over again.

Rachel keeps digging deeper into the story, Aidan keeps getting shadowed by the ghost girl and, soon, "Two" is getting wrapped up in the kind of mother-child story "Aliens'" Sigourney Weaver would understand.

Like the original, the movie is never bloody nor gory, earning a PG-13 rating and ensuring a prime following of high school moviegoers.

But one of the more fortunate aspects of both "Ring" films is Watts. No matter how far out the story gets (ghosts and TV sets; videotapes and telephone rings; a bathtub that shoots water up) she sells it.

She's got help, too. Sissy Spacek adds acting muscle, showing up in a short scene in an asylum, drenched in long, stringy black locks that make her look like a wigged-out Loretta Lynn.

Hair is one of the film series' not-so-subtle themes. Pitch-black hair. Strands drenched in mucky water and draped over a little girl's eyes.

Hair that engulfs and suffocates. It's horror as the ultimate bad hair day.