Hideo Nakata’s ‘The Ring 2’ Is Now Streaming Free—Here’s Why It’s Worth Watching
Gore Verbinski’s The Ring, a remake of Hideo Nakata’s classic analog shocker Ring (Ringu), inaugurated an entire decade of Asian horror flair in the United States. J-horror took off, with remakes of titles like The Grudge, Dark Water, and One Missed Call. But why stop there? South Korea joined the fray with 2008’s The Uninvited, a remake of Kim Jee-woon’s A Tale of Two Sisters, and even Thailand got some cred with Shutter, a remake of Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom’s film of the same name. Every horror fan remembers the era. But I’m not sold that many remember The Ring 2.
Hollywood loves sequels. Well, that’s not exactly true. They do, but the phenomenon isn’t unique to the vestiges of Golden Age filmmaking. Hideo Nakata’s original Ring had not just one, but two different sequels before he’d helm the follow-up to a remake of his own film. The Ring franchise cuts deep. Spiral, an adaptation of novelist Koji Suzuki’s sequel to Ring, was filmed and released concurrently with the original. Same cast, different crew. Ring soared. Spiral flopped. Nakata was then recruited for another sequel, Ring 2, which helped course-correct the burgeoning franchise. Six years later, Hollywood would call, and he’d helm another sequel, this time to the remarkably lucrative English-language remake.
Novelty is the Achilles heel of the horror genre. Killer videotapes are scary, but they’re also singular. Frightening enough for one movie, too fragile to be rewound for an entire franchise (whose latest entry, mind you, released in 2022, the 14th overall). Ju-On has 12 films under its belt. Who knew a curse could endure for that long?
Hideo Nakata’s The Ring 2, which turns 20 this year, was a known entity when it was released in March 2005. Not just because $249 million worth of audience saw Samara Morgan fall into that damned well, but because the rhythm and tropes of J-horror had already worn out their welcome. Remember Scream 4 and Kristen Bell’s rejection of little ghost girls? They were everywhere in the early aughts, principally because of The Ring.
Both Verbinkski and Nakata’s first films had the same heartrending ending, too. After the requisite lover boy is killed, the leads concede there is no way to combat the analog spirit. They’re left with no choice but to pass the curse on. With the sequel, Nakata took two wildly different directions. I won’t delve deep into 1999’s Ring 2, but it’s considerably unlike its English-language counterpart. They both bring back the original cast, but where Nakata’s Ring 2 continues to exploit the clash of modernity with antiquated trauma, his The Ring 2 is totally Hollywood.
That’s not an innately bad thing. Nakata is a wiz behind a camera, and The Ring 2 looks absolutely sensational. While no doubt taken for granted at the time, there’s depth, texture, and color far too regularly absent from modern horror films. And Naomi Watts, whose career was no doubt made mainstream by the first, is just as beleaguered and captivating as the haunted journalist, Rachel.
The Ring 2 is better than you might remember (assuming you didn’t forget it existed), though it does regularly misstep. The lore, so delicately crafted in the original film (and the novel) is rendered unwieldy right out of the gate. Samara (now played by Kelly Stables, replacing Daveigh Chase) has an inexplicable amount of agency, appearing where she otherwise shouldn’t be able to, largely to taunt Rachel and her son, Aiden (David Dorfman). There’s possession, violent deer, and a whole lot of supernatural horror tropes that both Nakata and Verbinski wisely resisted for their first go-round.
The film is, frankly, a mess. An arbitrary one, too, with shoehorned legacy and mythos buckling under the weight of stretching out a canonical story that had already ended. The literary Ring developed an entire universe of tragedy and cursed saps, rarely opting for the direct sequel route. Nakata’s first Ring 2 was evidence enough a straight-line sequel would be challenging, and it’s unfortunate to see him acquiesce to a check for an even more ill-advised encore.
Yet, for all my misgivings, The Ring 2 isn’t bad. Imperfect, yes, but in filmmaking, perfection should never be the point. Strong undercurrents of maternal grief are omnipresent, and Watts regularly elevates the lunacy with an earnest portrayal of a mother on the precipice of losing it all. Dorfman, for his part, ably proves why he was one of the early century’s most underrated child performers. And teenybopper stars Ryan Merriman and Emily VanCamp get menaced in the cold open. Even bad tapes have a few good reels.
As a whole, that’s really what The Ring 2 is. Some good, some bad, some atrocious, and some applause-worthy. Yeah, it’s cheap, but I love a one-liner, and Watts gets a hell of a good one here. Ring remains one of the most fascinating horror franchises out there, especially in later years when the series went full crossover mode. It’s funny, tragic, terrifying, poignant, absurd—it’s everything and anything it wants to be, whatever it takes for you to pop that tape in and give its reels a spin.
The Ring 2 is now streaming free on Tubi, and whether it’s your first or fifth time, it’s a curse worth revisiting. Nakata has had a fascinating career, one that transcends both Ring and The Ring 2. There’s something to be said, however, for seeing a master at work in a realm (read: Hollywood) so fundamentally at odds with their sensibilities. It’s an imperfect cocktail of strong lore and dodgy storytelling, though one that goes down easier 20 years later. If you’re brave enough, give it a go. Just be wary of any phone calls that might come in as the credits roll. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Categorized:Editorials
