Ringu 2 Year: 1999 Director: Hideo Nakada Written by: Hirashi Takahashi Threat: Ghost Weapon of Choice: Telepathy Based upon: none Color/B&W/3D: Color Language: Japanese Country of Origin: Japan IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Ringu
Ringu 0: Basudei

The tyranist's thoughts
The trick to making a good horror sequel seems to be the ability to expand the original mythos in a logical manner while finding new ways to frighten the audience. More of the same sometimes works, but virtually no one attempts that knowing that you will only appeal to your already built fan-base that way. There are no new audience members in doing more of the same.
This one walks the line between more of the same and something new. The tape is less the focus this time, but the threat is virtually identical nonetheless.
A reporter is investigating the reports of a tape killing people. Turns out it wasn't the tape but a ghost. And it still wants to kill people. Go figure.
I mostly enjoyed this one. It had similar charms to the first one and the Japanese have mastered certain types of scares. The divergence from the original mythos ends up being the thing that bothers me the most. I would have chosen to escalate the threat rather than focus on a different conveyance.
I sort of wish I'd seen the American The Ring 2 so that I could compare them for you. I'm betting they are nothing alike, but it will have to be Rish that tells you that.
There's no big reason to see this. The original is better, but if you are loading up on a stack of Japanese horror, this one is decent and will probably just blend in with the rest at the end of the night. Posted: February 5, 2006

Rish's Reviews
Tyranist was right, Ringu 2 and The Ring 2 had very little in common. Ringu 2 was a continuation of Ringu, but abandons the basic premise about halfway through, rather than The Ring 2, which was more of a continuation, but abandoned its original's premise much quicker than that. Both sequels managed to be inferior films to their predecessors (no big deal, it's nearly always the case), but both are considerably less scary than their originals too.
As I said in my recent review of Pulse/Kairo, I have a really hard time watching these Asian horror films and never finding out why certain things happened. The inexplicable, while interesting, can get annoying when no attempt is made to even try to explain why things happen. It was for that reason (and Naomi Watts, I'm sure) that I liked The Ring more than Ringu. And that same issue sure hindered my enjoyment of this film. Sometimes with these foreign films, I confuse characters and have difficulty keeping names straight. I don't need a constantly-changing universe of surreality on top of that.
Posted: May 18, 2006

Total Skulls: 9

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?