'The Ring Two' - A Vicious Circle

When American directors run out of ideas, they turn to the Japanese and try to translate their unique culture into Yankee terms. Everything from westerns like “The Magnificent Seven” to Kung Fu epics like “Kill Bill” are either directly or indirectly re-fashioned for our consumption.

Lately, horror and suspense have been imported for our viewing pleasure resulting in movies like “The Grudge” and “The Ring.” Perhaps something is getting lost in the translation because the overall effect is scary but completely senseless.

“The Ring Two” must have seemed like a great idea considering how well the first one did. Even though the original story based on the Japanese film “Ringu” had you following its far-fetched scenario for a good scare or two, the second has little left to add.

If a movie does really well these days, a sequel is almost inevitable. I think they should have quit while they were ahead. The Ring “deux” raises more questions than it answers resulting in a very frustrating experience.

I was willing to accept the fact that in the first installment a creepy video tape which looked like an old Bunuel short was possessed by a dead little girl from the bottom of a well.

The dead girl’s crazy mother had dumped her there because her horse’s went bonkers because they sensed something strange about the little girl. The girl was adopted because her real mother tried to kill her because she thought she was evil or something. I was willing to buy that once, but not twice.

The second time around, after Naomi Watts and her little boy have escaped the reaches of video hell, another tape turns up. Yes, the dreaded bootleg copy is back to wreak more havoc on teenagers with nothing better to do than scare themselves to death. Naturally, Naomi and son are nearby enough to assure that they get sucked into the whole mess once again.

And what a mess it is! Scenes with overflowing bathtubs and special effects involving water dominate. Watts searches for answers and discovers Sissy Spacek in a cameo role too embarrassing to shed any light on this black hole of a movie. Suffice to say that Naomi decides to feed her son a peanut butter and jelly and death sandwich and after the sedative-laced snack is consumed, she tries to drown the poor kid.

It’s a very disturbing scene to watch and feels like one more attempt to grasp for anything the director can do to weird out the audience. I was horrified, but for the wrong reason. At one point (because I’m not sure exactly where things fit into this loopy plot) Watts gets dragged into the television by the claws of the dead girl from TV land. Don’t ask me how, it just happens. Anyway, she ends up in the dreaded well and has to climb out while the dead girl crawls up after her like Gollum’s little sister. It looks creepy, but it’s just another plot twist stuck in to add to the growing mythology this nonsensical story has spawned.

Apparently the scariest thing that Japanese filmmakers can think of is combing your hair in front of your face and crawling around like a demented crab. I admit it’s strange looking, but what does it mean?

If you want to see a truly disturbing and totally creeped-out film with a knotted plot, rent “Eraserhead.” Now that’s scary!