Ringu 2

This is a direct continuation of the events in Ringu. The videotapes are still out there, people are still dying and two are still in hiding. Into this mix comes the assistant to the professor and a newsapaperman who do their own research on Sadako.

Some of the same mystery-type approach works here, but it's largely centered on police efforts to reconstruct what Sadako looked like from her skull. There is also a doctor who believes in the paranormal and thinks he has a way to drain the "spirit energy" out of people who have been possessed/influenced by Sadako.

There's a lot of spooky stuff that happens in this film, particularly the effect people who have been victimized by Sadako have on televisions. There's outright blood in this film, more deaths and even a betrayal by the newspaperman.

If you hadn't seen the first film, though, this one wouldn't make much sense. There's also no real explanation of why Sadako is out to kill virtually everyone or why she actually gives each person a way out if they follow it. One person wants Sadako's body burned but the policeman says it won't happen.

I think that would have made an interesting ending; have her body cremated and at the moment it is destroyed all the copies of the tape also self-combust and the people in the hospitals who were victimized by her all get better at the same time just as this horrible scream comes out of the incinerator.

As it is, the ending leaves open the possibility of even more victims, so nothing ends up actually being settled. The second movie is sort of cliched in places and it's not as scary as the first. Spooky, maybe, but not actually scary. It's not a bad film, it's just not as good as the first.

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