Ring 2

What a bore. Between laughing at scenes of violent CGI deer, and wondering how local newspaper reporters could afford large, lushly designed homes, I forgot about how much better a film like this could be...if it didn't try so hard to be a great film.

The project might as well have been doomed. Naomi Watts, a good actress, not a great actress, but still incredibly likeable, is said to have requested a complete script rewrite after rejecting the first draft. It's less on horror, and more on drama, with random bits of unexplained paranormal events that plagiarism ineffectively from the first film. We saw the same thing in the incredibly horrid Exorcist II. Horror sequels seem to have two options: double the gore, or just convolute the story into a psycho drama. Here we have the ladder.

That's what makes Ring II better suited for video than the big screen. It's an intimate piece, and perhaps watching it alone at night in your bedroom would help to provide the chills the film seems to lack on the big screen with ten teenage girls screaming and laughing behind you.

posted by steven @ 11:59 PM