The Ring Two

The Ring Two was a poor sequel to a poor remake of a classic Japanese horror film, made all the more disappointing by the fact that the director of the original, Hideo Nakata was involved.

The DVD is like the film itself. So much promise on the surface, but very little to shout (or scream) about when you examine it more closely. The menu seems full of features at first. However, Imagination In Focus and Samara From Eye To Icon are both two-minute documentaries (yes, two minutes), unenlightening and ultimately pointless, with their bitty cast and crew interviews and random structure.

The Haunting Of The Ring is worse still. Perhaps as a result of realising how unscary the film was, the film's makers try to make us believe that all sorts of creepy occurrences took place while filming. For instance, a deer nearly hit the set costumer on her way to work, mirroring a scene from the film in which Watt's character narrowly avoids a deer. The curse of the Poltergeist trilogy was a little more convincing, with its mysterious string of deaths among its actors and crew members.

There is a slightly longer documentary, produced by HBO, laughably entitled The Making Of The Ring Two. We learn very little about the actual making of the film, just superficial musings from Watts and that annoying kid who, like so many of Hollywood's children, smugly answers questions with spooky knowingness beyond their years. What he doesn't know (because his agent won't tell him) is that if he makes more tripe like The Ring Two, he'll end up another Corey Feldman.

Further rubbish on this DVD includes the previews - the trailer for Wes Craven's latest offering, Red Eye, and, er... The Ring. Surely anyone who has bought this DVD has only done so because they are a die-hard fan of The Ring in the first place, so why would they want to watch the trailer? As if this wasn't enough, there is no commentary track, the DVD equivalent of selling an ice-cream without a flake, for which there is no excuse.

The saving grace here is Rings. A 20-minute slice of reasonably effective horror, it tells us the background to the opening scene of The Ring Two in which a young student tries to convince his friend to watch the tape, thus saving his life. It is an interesting short film because we learn how he was tricked into watching the tape by his thrill-seeking friends, all of whom watched it just to document in a diary the exact experiences they have.

Then when he approaches his seventh day, they turn their back on him. Dark stuff, and pretty good fun while it lasts, but whether it is enough to purchase this DVD will depend on your level of devotion for this now-tired franchise.